Cadillac Hotel

By editor

Whitefish, Flathead County, Montana

For most of the twentieth century this corner held the Cadillac Hotel. It was not Whitefish’s first hotel—that was the Dodge—but built in 1907 beside the depot, the three-story Cadillac caught railroaders, passengers, and the night trade from Central Avenue’s bars. In 1922 J. J. Cremans built the New Cadillac that stood for the next seventy-two years under owners including the Zerr family and later Mel and Evelyn Stenslie.

The adjoining Cadillac Bar was a town living room. For a short mid-century stretch the organist was Joan Smith, who later married Ray Kroc of McDonald’s. In the 1960s the bar became the Hanging Tree, after Dorothy Johnson’s novel—Johnson being a Whitefish resident who knew how to put a Montana town on a national bookshelf.

Age and disuse closed the hotel. In 1994 the brick came down for the Great Northern Brewing Co.; later restaurant incarnations included Glacier Grande, Serano’s, Paddle & Axe, and Craggy Range. The marker commemorates a building that is gone and a corner that still behaves like a gathering place. In a railroad town, that may be the more durable architecture.