S HINE A LI GHT
THE WONDERS NEVER CEASE AT HELL CREEK By Michelle Loeb When Steve Bury, a veteran of the Seattle-area music scene, and his wife Christie, a fashion marketing professional, decided to move their family to Glendive, Mont., in 2003, they knew they wanted to open a store that captured the imagination of the small town they were about to call home. “Because we are in a small town, we have to be diverse in order to make it. You can’t just be one thing,” said Steve. “The main focus was music, but we slowly incorporated other areas that weren’t in other places and combined that with our hobbies.” With that, Hell Creek Music & More was born. From the start, the “more” consisted of collectibles and comics, which have become a mainstay, according to Steve, because “there isn’t a good comic book shop in the area.” He added, “Musicians generally like comics and collectibles as well, so we sell a lot of comics and guitars at once.” In the beginning, Hell Creek 36
Music & More included the Makoshika Dinosaur Museum, a non-profit museum that included an eclectic collection of fossils and sculptures, which became part of Montana’s famed Dinosaur Trail. The museum was a part of the store for 10 years before it was donated to the county’s Frontier Gateway Museum, with the exception of the 38-foot Tyrannosaurus rex that remains as one of the store’s main attractions. “We wanted to have a curiositytype store, and for us, it was all about dinosaurs,” said Christie, who first became familiar with the town of Glendive because of her daughter’s interest in paleontology. In fact, the store got its name from the Hell Creek formation, a hotbed of paleontology that features exposed rock formations from the Cretaceous period, part of which is located one mile from the store in Makoshika State Park. “The store was named after ‘why’ we moved to Glendive, Mont.,” Christie added.
Despite those grand ambitions to have something for everybody, Hell Creek Music & More had very humble beginnings. Christie took on two part-time jobs while Steve opened the store. They purchased the building where the store is located, scraping together a first month’s payment and spending their remaining $300 on accessories from EMD Music. That, plus some acoustic guitars, amps and band-andorchestra instruments fronted to them by Steve’s former employer at Helmer’s Music, made up the whole of their inventory. “You have to do what you can with what you’ve got until you get to where you want to be,” said Steve, whose industry contacts and reputation for paying his bills at Helmer’s
Hell Creek Music & More 101 Merrill Ave. Glendive, MT 59330 (406) 377-7977 www.hellcreekmusic.com Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. Steve and Christie Bury, Owners
Music helped the store to gain vendors in the early days. “We grew the business slowly and steadily. We never took more than we could pay back, and everything we made went right back into the store,” added Christie. “We paid for the building and the merchandise, so when the COVID-19 lockdowns happened, we didn’t have the huge overhead, and that was one less stress.” Over the years, the Bur ys added a toy section to the shop, as well as an escape room that, due to COVID-19 restrictions, FEBRUARY 2021
