About
We are primarily an awesome walk in Jam & Pie Factory, Eatery, and Gift/Clothing Store at the gateway to Glacier Park! We do offer a few mail order options for our award winning Huck Jam but our focus is hands on service for the physically present customer. We are here to serve you and meet your needs in a fun cost effective way!
Oh yeah and if that is not enough we have a full selection of fresh gourmet CHOCOLATES for you to choose from!
Owner James West "Buddy" Willows was born and raised here working the family business and enjoying climbing the area mountains. (He climbed Big Chief last summer 017- left) Now he will tell about his father and the family business;
"My Dad James Lake Willows homesteaded in Fairfield Montana in the 1930s then sold his stake and moved to this area to log out the Hungry Horse Reservoir. Dad got two six wheel drive army trucks and because of the six wheel drive was able to go deep into what is now the reservoir to haul the logs to FKL mill in Martin City. He told me that was the best money he ever made raking in $36,000.00 in the early 40's. (Not too many other rigs could go into the steep reservoir.) Having three of the most beautiful daughters/waitresse in the area he started Willows HoneyBerry Farm after he helped build the Hungry Horse Dam. He kept going down to spy on the origianal Eva Gates in Bigfork and finally figured out how to make the Huckleberry Preserves and Pies becoming the second person in the world to commercially make and sell the products. After running his business successfully for over thirty years he started a college and summer playhouse. When the bad recession hit in the eighties he lost his overextended HoneyberryFarm to the bank. I had a wild youth but had come to know Christ and was a missionary in Jamaica at the time. (my son Josiah was even born there!) I learned the bank had taken the business but I did not have the 100,000 needed to keep it out of hawk so our family lost it and John and Jackie Watkins bought it and renamed it The Huckleberry Patch. (It has since been sold to a casino based corporation.)
After my missionary activity my wife and I decided we must continue the family business somehow so we started in the gravel floored car port of our 10 by 50 trailer in July of 1991. The first day nobody came except for our friends Clarence and Lillian who bought something out of pity. Undettered we kept selling Cherries, Wild Hucks and Ice-Cream. (Note we still sell some of the freshest cherries in the area!). The re-birth of Willows HoneyBerry Farm was successful and we became the busiest fruit stand around! My Dad's canner Shirley Winters taught me the original recipe and the next summer we resumed making and selling our famous preserves! I was looking for a place to expand and threw some rocks onto this piece as I was preparing to mow. God spoke to me, "Don't do that!" I replied, "I know I shouldn't because it is not mine." He replied, "That is not the reason, you will own that land and when you do you will just need to pick those rocks back up!" The 300 feet of frontage went up for sale, we bought it and have been growing ever since! I built the present factory/ store myself in 2010.
