The Armington Mercantile Company was established in Armington, Montana, in June 1890 by Charles A. Broadwater's Montana National Bank. Broadwater hired John T. Athey as manager and transferred most of the stock from his Sun River store to the new store. John T. Athey and Byrd A. Robertson became partners in the store after the death of Broadwater in 1892. In 1901 the partners sold the store to its manager C.L. Crane who renamed it the Crane Mercantile Company. John T. Athey was born in Maryland on February 14, 1843. He enlisted in the Union Army in 1861 and served in the Sixth West Virginia Infantry for four years. After the Civil War he served in the West in the Indian campaigns and at Fort Leavenworth and Fort Sulley as a surveyor and post trader through the 1870s. He travelled to Fort Benton, Montana Territory, in 1879 to work as a clerk for T.C. Power. Power sent him to Fort Walsh to be the post trader there. In 1884 he moved to Sun River to manage the Montana National Bank's store for Charles A. Broadwater. In June 1890 he opened the Armington Mercantile Company, which he ran until 1896. Athey later served as Clerk of Court for the Eighth Judicial District, Cascade County; Clerk of the Montana Supreme Court; and Cascade County School Board member. He was married to Katy D. Clark and they had two children. He died June 13, 1915.