The Salty Dawg originally was one of the first cabins built in Homer in 1897, soon after the establishment of the town site.[citation needed]

It was acquired in the late 1940s by Chuck Abbott.[citation needed] In 1949 Chuck and his friend Gerald Gifford put the cabin on skids and moved it to the Homer Spit.[citation needed] In April 1957, he officially opened it as the Salty Dawg Saloon.[citation needed] By 1960 the Salty Dawg Saloon had a building adjacent to it, coinciding with The Alaska Territory becoming the 49th state of the union in January 1959.[citation needed]

Earl D. Hillstrand (1913-1974), an attorney, small businessman and member of the Alaska House of Representatives, purchased it in 1960.[citation needed] Although an Anchorage resident, Hillstrand had a homestead near Homer and was in the process of developing the nearby Land's End Resort at the time.[citation needed]

The Salty Dawg Saloon is currently owned and operated by John Warren.[citation needed]

The saloon has been featured on Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel.[citation needed] The bar is known for the thousands of dollar bills signed by visitors and tacked to the walls. This practice started many years ago, when a visitor tacked a dollar on the wall, explaining that his friend would be by later. The dollar was intended for buying the friend a drink.[1]