Rainbow Sporting Goods celebrates its 50th anniversary

This past weekend Rainbow Sporting Goods had a milestone 50th birthday party to celebrate the store’s remarkable legacy, but the history of the store dates back much further, as store owner Peggy Pearson explained.

“A young man was out front one day taking pictures of our shop and I came down the street and saw him doing it. So I asked him why and he said 'because my great-great-great grandfather had this building.'”

Years later the young man’s father showed up and gave Peggy pictures of the building from 1899. Of course, much has changed since then, and Peggy spoke about the history of the store that has been going strong for half a century.

Back in 1974 a couple by the name of Sharps owned the store.

“And they had a shoe shop in here. But they had a little bit of fly-tying materials in here, so he would walk over and get some fly-tying materials,” Peggy said, referring to her late husband Gary. “And one day they said they were thinking of selling the building.” 

Peggy and Gary took a look at it and decided to buy. 

“'Oh yeah,' he said, 'I can put a sporting store in here,'” she said, and laughed. “So that’s how we came across this building.”

The couple bought it and quickly started to fill their new store with inventory, and then on April 20, 1974 they officially opened their doors.

“It’s like any other business – it has its good days and its bad days, depending on the weather and this kind of stuff,” she said. “But he was elated, because he started tying flies when he was eight years old. He tied flies up to 49 years in here – all the flies, every one. Every single one.”

His flies were so popular, in fact, that he was asked to provide his handmade treasures to other sporting goods stores in the surrounding areas, but after several years of doing this – and after their own inventory was running a bit low – he decided to tie exclusively for their own establishment.

Their clientele included people from Europe. Gary was practically famous for his impressive flies. 

“They’d call sometimes and ask him to tie up this certain fly for them, and he’d have them ready for them. But some of those people probably aren’t even aware that he passed,” Peggy said somberly.

Sadly, Gary passed away on July 27, 2023. Then three months later, on Oct. 27, Peggy was diagnosed with Leukemia. 

“I feel good about it. I’ve got a lot of people praying for me, and that big guy upstairs I feel like he's watching over me,” she said of her diagnosis.

Obviously, the couple chose a sporting goods store because it was Gary’s passion, but Peggy worked at a variety of jobs throughout the years including JC Penney where she was employed for 24 years. 

“I’m retired right now,” she explained, adding that she has been the one keeping the business afloat after her husband of 53 years’ passing. She plans to continue doing so until she figures things out. The store doesn’t have official hours, but typically if the ‘closed’ sign is up, she’s at a doctor’s appointment. She had to close the shop for the entire month of February because she was in the hospital with a virus.

“I don’t really know what I’m going to do yet. Everybody kept asking me and I said it’s too soon, I can’t make that decision yet. But I’m here. I live here. And as long as I’m here, I’ll open it up,” she said.

Turning her attention back to her husband, “I think Gary knew he was getting bad,” she said. 

“And when we found out he had the cancer and he had that first cancer treatment, he didn’t even come out of it. I had to take him to the emergency room. And we had talked prior to that and I said – I said, 'I know you’re getting bad and you’ve got cancer now and I hope this chemo helps you,'”she said, and added that he also suffered from COPD and additional underlying problems.

“So I said, 'I’ll take care of the shop and stuff, for as long as I can.' And he said, 'well, don’t order anything.' He said 'sell what you have,'” she explained, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

For now, she plans on keeping the store open. Last year she was approached by a man from Missouri who offered to purchase it, but she said “I’m just not ready yet. He just passed. And he said, 'well I’m a guide and I tie flies,' and I said, 'you’d be perfect. You’d fill up the fly boxes,'” she said, her voice full of emotion. “So he gave me his name, and he said, 'if you ever change your mind give me a call.'”

But she’s in no hurry. Rainbow Sporting Goods is synonymous with Gary, and she’s not quite ready to let it go just yet. She dried her eyes and looked around the store when she noticed a picture.

“That’s him right there,” she said, pointing to a picture of Gary with, of course, a fishing rod in his hands, “and that’s our grandson. He started him fishing at three years old.”

Directly behind the picture was a vase full of long feathers and cat tails from his funeral. Some of the cattails had little metal things attached to them, and upon closer review, you could see that the little metal things were, in fact, Gary’s handmade flies. 

Rainbow Sporting Goods is located at 605 E. Park Ave. in Anaconda. For more information, call (406) 563-5080.