Old Bill's trucks haven't always been pristine gems of beauty. Here's an early boot-legger model before Bill went "legit".

Many people have asked, “How the hell did Bill’s Beer and Bait Shop get started? Mostly those people are Game Management officials or lawyers conducting depositions. But we’ll tell you anyhow.

Bill’s Beer and Bait Shop was spawned out of tragedy. During the horrible Curt Floods of 1934, in which the mighty Curt River overflowed it’s banks and sent literally several illegal homesteaders downriver, a 1930-something flatbed truck and it’s owner/operator were swept into the current, sent hurtling downstream and eventually crashing into the only saloon on the river (the legendary “I’m Drunk-Yur Pretty Cabaret").

Surviving the dunking and now separated from his rig, a lesser man might have cursed the fates that conspired to destroy his only means of employment, and durn near his life, but William Robert Robert (Billy Bob-Bob to his friends) was a true visionary. When the waters receded he realized that fate had dealt him a winning hand. There, left high in the trees by the raging torrent, Bill found his Holy Grail... a truck with a bar stuck on back.

Bill took to extricating his truck using good old fisherman’s know-how. He cut down the tree which eventually achieved his goal of getting his truck back to earth. Unfortunately, Bill forgot to take into account the southerly winds typical of that time of year and he succumbed when his truck landed smack-ass on his head.

It was several years later when his nephew, once or twice removed (ironically also named Bill), came across the derelict vehicle. After restoration (knocking out the dents from the fall from the tree, scraping off the rest of dearly departed Uncle Bill and adding sundry accoutrements) the younger Bill took Bill’s Beer and Bait Shop on the road, dedicated to living his late uncle’s dream of “good beer and bait at every fishing hole".

That dream still lives today, as does the memory of Billy Bob Bob (before the truck fell on him. You don’t want to remember him after the tragedy... he was a handsome man.)

And that dream can be yours today, if only for a short time, at your next shindig or get-together. You could buy the whole shootin match if you wanted to, but it’s probably better to rent because the transmission isn’t what it used to be and the brakes sometimes get a tad squishy.

We’ll even set her up and take her down for you! Otherwise, yer neighbors might think you were gettin' a bit uppity!