Equity Co-op to celebrate 100th with expansion

The year was 1916, not even a year after Phillips became a county, that a group of businessmen decided to open Equity Co-op in Malta.

According to Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch, there are only 27 businesses and organizations still operating in Montana that registered with the office in 1916, Malta's Equity Co-op is among those 27.

To celebrate their 100th year in business – which officially takes place on November 9 of this year – the location is expanding its floor space to offer its customers a more wide-open shopping experience.

Bishop Inc., broke-ground for the expansion two Tuesday's ago and last Tuesday, the concrete for the expansion's foundation was poured. Clausen and Sons will be putting the new, metal building up for the November 9th Anniversary – a 40x72' addition.

"We are going to have a Centennial Celebration on that day," General Manager Mark French said. "We will have a grand opening of the new edition. We will be having an open house that day as well as a lunch feed in the afternoon."

The Phillips County Museum recently contacted Equity Co-op and let the employees know that they have some old Equity Co-op artifacts from years gone by. French said if anyone has other old Equity Co-op items, the store would love to have them for the November 9, 100 year anniversary.

"If you have anything from the early years, we'd love to borrow them for the celebration," he said.

French, who has been GM at Equity Co-op for nearly 18 years, said the store's expansion would allow for more display areas for inventory already on hand that isn't displayed year-round because of a lack of floor space.

"We will add more to the bolt section," he said. "We have started to carry some Western wear as well. Since Weiderick's closed, there isn't really anywhere to buy Western wear in this Ag-based economy. So we sell cowboy hats and those types of items, but we don't currently have any space to display them year-round."

French said that once the expansion is complete, shoppers will seee most of the items for sale at Equity Co-op on the sales floor, including jeans and boots, horse tack, animals feeds and much more.

"We aren't adding a bunch of new inventory, but rather somewhere to display it," French said. "We want to be able to display a little of everything we have in our warehouse to let you know that we have it on hand. From salt blocks, to rabbit food to bird seed. We have a lot of stuff and people sometimes don't know it. We want to keep business here, but we don't want to compete with current businesses."

Back in 1916, Equity Co-op was mostly based around the grain elevator across the street from the today's store on 1st Street East. Today, the Co-op has expanded to where it takes up most of the 400-block of street and offers customers everything from automotive repair to farming supplies while employing ZZ people.

Equity Co-op is locally owned by several hundred members of the community, each holding one share of the company at $200 a share. French said the company has a board of directors who are voted on at Equity's annual meetings.