Parks' Fly Shop is a fly shop and licensed fly fishing outfitter in Gardiner, Montana. In business since 1953, the shop located at 202 2nd Street between Main and Stone is the oldest business in Gardiner under continuous family ownership. History In the late 1940s, Merton J. Parks (1916-1970) was an executive in the paper industry in Cloquet, Minnesota. Merton's avocations however were fly fishing and fly tying. He was an accomplished trout fisherman in the trout streams along the north shore of Lake Superior. His fly tying skills were such that many of his friends encouraged him to tie flies for them. Therefore, Merton started a small, part-time mailorder fly tying operation. In the summer of 1947, Merton took his family, including his four-year-old son, Richard, on a trip to Montana and Yellowstone National Park. It was on this trip that Merton met Dan Bailey of Livingston, Montana. By early 1952, Merton had decided to quit the paper industry and move his family and fly-tying business to Montana. With the help of Dan Bailey, Merton established Parks' Fly Shop in the back of a small store on W. Park Street, Gardiner, Montana in the summer of 1953. In 1952, I was looking for retail shop accounts to get our wholesale tackle business off the ground, and Richard's late father, Merton Parks, was looking for a place to open a quality fly shop. Together, we found Gardiner to be a suitable location. Merton was an outstanding sportsman, a fine fisherman, and an excellent fly tier who quickly became a good friend as well. Dan Bailey, 1978 The small fly shop remained at the W. Park Street location for less than a year. In early 1954, Merton moved the business to a small store on S. 2nd Street that had been relocated from the abandoned town of Cinnabar, Montana a few miles north of Gardiner. By the early 1960s, Merton moved the business into a more permanent structure, its present location at 202 S. 2nd Street, next to the old store, sharing the building with the U.S. Forest Service offices in Gardiner. The fly shop was one of the first in the region to offer guided float fishing on the Yellowstone River. In 1955, Merton guided his first float clients in a war surplus rubber raft, but quickly transitioned to wooden rowboats and eventually aluminum jon boats. In 1978, Richard began