SAVE THE MERC: A fight for community

By Lily Sharp

The Jamestown Mercantile has been a staple of Jamestown, Colorado, for over a century. KGNU’s Lily Sharp sat down with Rainbow Shultz, owner and manager at the Merc, to learn more about the fight to save this community space.

Right now, the fate of The Merc is in the hands of its community. The building’s owner has plans to sell the space for $1.5 million. Shultz has created a nonprofit under the name SAVE THE MERC to come up with the money needed to purchase the building and keep The Merc running.

The space has been a gathering place for miners, tourists, residents, and the like for over a century.

Shultz explained the Merc’s history as, “ a little fuzzy for everybody. It was built and opened in 1892. It was briefly an Odd Fellows hall. It may or may not have had roller skating upstairs. That’s the rumor we all love to believe. But then it was the mercantile for the miners for a good 70 years. All the miners would come in and get their lunch or a slice of pie, and everyone could work off their tab on the book because every once in a while, when they got paid, they could trade it in for their supplies and their lunch.”

The Merc became a restaurant and community gathering space after living many lives as a post office and general store.

Shultz said, “ There used to be a lot of chain smoking, which I actually got rid of, but it was a fun vibe. It’s just in constant transition. It’s always an evolution.”

Shultz took over the Merc almost two decades ago. She’s expanded on old traditions while creating new ones for the tight-knit Jamestown community.

One of these new traditions is the Merc’s annual “Kids’ Cafe”, where local children run the Merc for a night, taking orders and bringing spaghetti to tables.

Shultz said, “ We’ve had people wander in, tourists who are just out sightseeing and walked into this place that felt like they were in some sort of a strange dream where it was just all children bringing out plates of heaping pasta and sides of whipped cream. In essence, that is this place. It’s outside of time.”

More information and ways to support the Merc can be found at savethemerc.org.

This story aired on the Morning Magazine, KGNU’s weekday morning show featuring in-depth discussions on local news issues. Click here to listen to other episodes of the Morning Magazine.