Added to the National Register in 1986, the building has undergone substantial change since then. The "one-story, wood framed, metal roof, storage and freight loading area" is gone and the "boarded up area to the left of the windows" has been reopened and the door made useable. No longer a Napa Auto Parts store, the ground floor is today a pizza shop (a Simple Simon's franchise) in the winter and a pizza and ice cream shop in the summer. Tuesdays and Sundays they even offer a buffet.
Gem Saloon
This two-story brick building has a concrete foundation, a full basement, a roof of built-up composition, and a one-story attached brick addition built in 1914. A one-story, wood framed, metal roof, storage and freight loading area was added to the southeast corner in 1981. The original building has a front (south) side of pressed
facade. The entryway is recessed and splits two display windows. A boarded-up area to the left of the windows conceal a second story entryway staircase. Separating the two stories is a band of wood coping. Above it stands four double-hung windows. Above it there is a wood cornice, with a blocking course reaching the roof.
A sign with the Napa Motor Parts logo juts out over the sidewalk from a metal rod anchored under one of the windows. The building is laid in American bond. The east side has a first floor door and a boarded-up second floor window. The south side features the wood addition and a boarded-up window on the brick one-story addition. The main building has a doorway splitting double hung windows on the second story. The west wall is common with "FERKS" Restaurant. An interior brick stack is located near the east wall.
John Sanfacon arrived in Thompson Falls between 1905 and 1906. By 1907 he ran one of the saloons on Main Street. Sanfacon prospered in the coming years. He bought and sold land, built bungalows for rental, became a town alderman, and owned a 1½ story brick residence on Preston Avenue. In 1914 he built this two-story structure to house his Gem Saloon on the first floor and to rent offices on the second. H.O. Bond, a lawyer, became out of his early tenants. At that time the building had eight rooms upstairs, a basement with a street entrance, a barber shop, two pool tables, two public baths, and a restaurant. During prohibition, the barber shop survived, along with a cigar and candy store.
In the 1930s it became a grocery for a time, with the owner living upstairs. Later on the upstairs was made into apartments. Missoula
Motor Parts bought the building in 1982.
From the Architectural Inventory Form