By Jean Cerar

On a hot summer night in 1980 the Issaquah Valley was rocked by a series of explosions. It was the fiery demise of the Waterhole Tavern, and probably Issaquah’s first brush with organized crime.

The tavern was already in the news because its proprietor, Dave Brumpton, had posted signs promising “Girls-Girls-Girls! Live! On Stage!”

The Waterhole had been closed for several months, but now seemed ready to re-open with topless go-go dancers, and amateur night on Wednesdays. Brumpton told the Issaquah Press at the time he figured his clientele would come from “the men of the town.” For the women he’d have male go-go dancers on Sundays.

Never mind that the Issaquah Municipal Code prohibited topless tavern acts. Brumpton said he was betting the city didn’t have enough money to sue him. The business had other problems as well. The city was investigating whether the provocative placards violated the sign ordinance, utilities had been shut off, the building’s owners were suing Brumpton to vacate the property, and the mob was reportedly not pleased with his decision to hire his own dancers.

“There was an individual who was kind of the godfather of all the strip clubs in the area, who came to [Dave] and said, ‘You hire my girls, you put my soda machines in there, you put my cigarette machines in there. And that’s the way we’re going to run it, and I get a cut,’” recalled Ed Mott, an Issaquah police officer at the time. “And the owner, Dave, says, ‘No.’ Well a couple of nights later, the place was blown up.”

The explosions occurred about 11:30 p.m. on the night of Aug. 28, and definitely got the attention of people for miles around.

My husband and I, who had just gone to bed, sat straight up as the concussions shook our house on Squak Mountain. We had no idea what had happened. The next morning when I drove down to shop at the Hi-Lo Market (now the Gilman Antique Gallery in the Gilman Square Home Center), I saw the charred mass of rubble where the Waterhole had stood, across the parking lot to the east of the grocery store.

The area was strewn with yellow crime scene tape. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) had taken over the investigation, a sure sign that arson was suspected.

Witnesses working at Hi-Lo on the night of the fire said there was a small explosion, followed by a huge blast that sent a ball of flame 100 feet into the air, and then another four or five smaller explosions.

Firefighters from the Issaquah Fire Department and King County Fire District 10 arrived less than three minutes after the alarm, but there wasn’t much left of the Waterhole.

Most of the men turned their attention next door to Merritt Lighting and Appliance (now Sunnybrook Montessori School), where the cedar siding had caught and the fire was spreading.

Crews managed to save about half of the building and most of the appliances. Damage was estimated at $250,000.

It didn’t take long to determine it was arson. Poking through the piles of smoldering debris, the ATF agents discovered blasting caps and safety fuses connected to little pails of gasoline. The clues were easy to find because the big explosion had blown the roof straight up in the air. When it pancaked down onto the foundation, it smothered much of the fire and preserved the evidence.

“It was an amateur job,” King County Assistant Fire Marshal Dan Lester later testified. “No pro would have done it that way.”

In June of 1981, Brumpton was arrested for torching his own establishment. He was found not guilty on Aug. 24, just short of a year after the Waterhole went sky high. The judge ruled the evidence was not sufficient to prove that Brumpton was the arsonist.

Merritt Lighting and Appliance re-opened in November 1980, but the Waterhole Tavern was never rebuilt.

Fire Chief Singleton summed it up as he surveyed the scene after the fire: “There will be NO topless dancing in this tavern.”

A remnant of the concrete slab foundation of the Waterhole Tavern still exists. It is on the north side of NW Locust St., across from Amanti Pizza & Pasta in the vacant lot between the bright blue Blue Dog building and the Sunnybrook Montessori School.

Jean Cerar is a docent at the Issaquah History Museums