Bob Ward's Sports & Outdoors

Montana's oldest and largest sporting goods store! Bob Ward's Sports & Outdoors, a retailer with deep roots in Montana, is proud of its heritage and the tale of its founder, Robert C. Ward. Bob Ward was born in Minnesota in 1885. In March 1900, at the age of 15, Bob set out on a journey to the Klondike in search of gold. Two states later, in Missoula, Montana, Bob ran out of money. Eager to continue his journey, Bob looked up an old family friend, John Roland, who owned a Missoula jewelry store. Roland offered Bob a job that the young man was sure would pay the rest of his way to the Klondike. Still in Missoula sixteen years later, Bob was married and on the verge of opening a watch-repair shop. His shop opened in 1917. Over the next decade, he and his wife became the parents of eight children, six of whom were boys. And those six boys followed in Bob's footsteps, creating a Montana business tradition known today as Bob Ward's. It all began, simply, because Robert C. Ward, at the age of fifteen, ran out of money in Missoula, Montana, while on his way to find a fortune. What he found instead was a long, prosperous life in the heart of Big Sky Country; what he left is a proud legacy of service to Montanans and others that the family carries on today.