Livingston Saturday Nights: Visiting Livingston, Montana

Livingston lies twenty miles east of Bozeman, tucked along I-90 in south-central Montana. Blink, and you’ll miss it. Change the station, and it’s gone. Most people drive through without knowing they’ve passed one of the country’s most quietly inspiring towns.

Small-town life is coveted, and the locals know it. They’re wary of too many outsiders falling in love and trying to remake the place in their image. Livingston lives in the past—not one past, but many. Each person carries their own version. The town curls in the smoke of history, and its identity drifts somewhere between recognition and reverie.

I see Livingston as one part avant-garde hereafter, two parts maudlin romanticism. But you have to look past the surface. The small mountain town has been home to more authors per capita than anywhere else in the country: Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison, Peter Bowen, Christopher Paulini, Doug Peacock, William Hjortsberg, Tim Cahill, Russell Chatham, and others. Other notable people, such as Jeff Bridges, Michael Keaton, Margot Kidder, Dennis Quaid, James Cameron, and John Mayer, have all called Livingston home. It’s the site of one of the New York Times’ best restaurants in America (also a James Beard finalist). And it rests just forty-five minutes from the north entrance of Yellowstone.

Between Livingston and the park lies Paradise Valley, Gallatin National Forest, and the Absaroka and Gallatin Ranges. Where artists and cowboys meet. There’s something here you have to search for, and not just in the storefronts or the mountains, but in yourself.

I’m sitting in the Peckinpah Suite at the Murray Hotel; I have a glass of wine in hand. The room is dim, lit by a single antique pulley lamp. Through the French doors, I watch the red neon of the Hiatt House bar across the street. Patrons come and go. The sun scatters across Livingston Peak—green to brown to red to orange—until only the neon and a streetlamp remain.

The suite is named after Sam Peckinpah, who lived here shortly before passing away. The Murray hosted Will Rogers, Calamity Jane, Robert Wadlow, Sam Shepard, Vonnegut, Pitt, Mahalia Jackson, Tom Skerritt, Seymour-Hoffman, Peck, Johansson, Waylon Jennings, Ron Howard, Dave Matthews, Redford, and Buffett. But it’s Anthony Bourdain’s story that stays with me. He considered the Murray one of his top ten hotels worldwide. I can picture him here, wine in hand, watching the Hiatt House, startled by the hollow cornet of the train across the street.

Livingston is transitional, but somehow timeless. I stand at the window, looking down at the red brick façade of Gil’s Goods, and that knowing feeling begins to rise. Then, like so many thoughts here, it’s caught and carried off by the blustery winter wind.

In the morning, I walk through the lobby, past the 120-year-old OTIS lever-operated elevator and the photo of Wadlow standing beside it. I crossed the train depot. The Northern Pacific Beanery sits in the north wing, a diner that feels like it’s from the fifties. I sit on a short metal stool and order breakfast. I imagine Leave It to Beaver meets the beat generation. Soda fountains and staircase chain-smoking. Parades and prose. Hudson Commodores and passenger cars bound for Yellowstone.

I walk the tracks. A freight train passes, dragging cold wind with it. I count seconds, spot graffiti, and hobo tags. I make my way to Yellowstone Street and admire the town’s oldest homes, statuesque, planted like monuments. I stop at the bridge over Sacajawea Pond. This might be my favorite spot. Kids fish off one side, tackle boxes spilling soil and worms, and an elderly man fishes off the other. I walk the pond’s edge, careful not to startle the Mallards and Canadian Geese.

I consider walking to the pier, but instead cross River Street and climb a few concrete steps. The Yellowstone River emerges, sprawling, free-flowing, forming islands with sand beaches and palm-sized stones in every color. Rafters, kayakers, paddle boarders, and fly fishers. One of the few free-flowing rivers left in the States.

I sit on a bench and get lost in the rushing echoes. I’ve seen pelicans, cranes, geese, gulls, mallards, bald eagles, ospreys, and golden eagles. A moose once crossed the shallows. One afternoon, I passed Brad Zellar on the path—author of Suburban World, Till the Wheels Fall Off, and The 1968 Project. He hitchhiked here in the ’70s. He’s been coming back ever since.

In spring, the air is thick with dandelion seeds, roasted snow, blanketing everything in new life. The perfume of flowers is everywhere, untraceable, as if rising from your own breath. My only complaint is that Livingston could be more walkable, especially between the river and Main Street.

At the heart of Main is Tru North Café. I ordered a Golden Milk and watched James, the owner, greet everyone. I sit under the bay window, raised on a platform—perfect for people-watching. A couple sits nearby. He wears sunglasses and a trucker hat that reads “Douglas.” He turns, and I recognize him. Michael Keaton. Keaton and I make eye contact. I smile and wave, and Michael smiles and waves back. Keaton has a ranch outside town. He’s often seen talking and laughing with locals.

I think about Livingston in the ’70s. Some say that was its prime. I’ve heard stories about the old days and the unsexy poker games on the fourth floor of the Murray. Jim Harrison is escorting a gassed Peter Bowen down marble stairs. Peckinpah was shooting holes in the ceiling, aiming at his cats; $8 for a bunk bed, shared bathrooms. And the smell of smoke, stale beer, expensive liquor, and gunpowder. It wasn’t pretty. But it was romantic.

Harrison is immortalized in Bourdain’s No Reservations episode “Montana.” They dined at 2nd Street Bistro. It’s hard to single out one restaurant; they’re all good. Campione, Livingston Bar & Grill, Neptune’s, The Mint, Gil’s Goods, The Murray Bar. You might see Jeff Bridges at the bar, beer in hand.

Not all the restaurants are open. I couldn’t tell you when they were. In the meantime, explore the galleries, bookstores, and boutiques. Stop by Fireflies Pottery & Art Studio. Get a coffee. Wander into the backroom. Paint something, inching toward your daily creative quota. Fireflies is a favorite of Drew Barrymore’s, even featured on her show.

I found Livingston by accident. I have found most of the best places are found by accident. I had never heard of it before exiting I-90 and driving up Park Street. The pine trees were lit in white Christmas lights. The neon signs I once thought were tawdry. Livingston Peak towers are like a citadel. Few people come here only once, and those who do miss something. But Livingston doesn’t mind. It’s not heartbreaking when tourists leave.

I’ll see it in my rearview mirror enough times to know it won’t stay there. It’ll be waiting, relatively unchanged. And when I return, it’ll still feel like mine. Until then, here’s to another glass of wine. And a few stanzas from Jimmy Buffett’s “Livingston Saturday Night” are still ahead.