Bluebird Inn
Bickleton, Washington · Gilded Age · Est. 1887 · Open today
Since 1887
The building was constructed in the spring of 1887 by Jacob N. Jensen for C.E. Flower and Dr. Hamilton Blair as a drugstore and dwelling, and it became a saloon that fall. A Brunswick pool table purchased in 1903 remains in the bar today, and a barber shop operated in the back in the early years. The bar went by several names — including The Bickleton Club for a quarter century — before adopting the Bluebird name in the late 1970s, a nod to Bickleton's fame as the 'Bluebird Capital of the World.' The tavern's longstanding men-only tradition ended around 1965, when women were finally allowed and even welcomed inside. After a recent closure it reopened under owners Nelda and Candice Flores and operates seasonally.
For roughly its first eight decades the tavern was effectively men-only; women were not allowed and welcomed inside until around 1965.
What to order: The 1903 Brunswick pool table, still in play more than 120 years after it was installed.
How solid is the claim?
Washington’s oldest bar — the evidence
Bluebird Inn in Bickleton is our featured pick for the oldest bar in Washington, with a claimed founding year of 1887. The 1887 building (a saloon since that fall) is genuinely the oldest building in Washington still serving as a tavern, but The Brick Saloon in Roslyn (1889) has operated continuously as a saloon under one name and is widely called the state's oldest continuously operating bar; NW Travel Magazine concluded The Brick 'technically wins' on continuity. The Bluebird also changed names several times and recently closed and reopened.
Competing Claims
Other Washington establishments with a stake in the title: