Hori Cafe Building

By editor

Whitefish, Flathead County, Montana, 1905

The Great Northern Railway, in its infinite wisdom, decided that Whitefish was the perfect place to put a division point, which meant it was the perfect place for a great many men to get off a train, look around, and realize they were hungry. In 1905, a Japanese immigrant named Mr. Hori looked at this situation and saw an opportunity. He built a modest, one-story false-front commercial building on Central Avenue and opened the Hori Cafe. It was a simple proposition: feed the railroaders, and they will give you their money.

Mr. Hori was part of a small but significant Japanese community in Whitefish, drawn by the railroad's insatiable need for labor. They worked the tracks, they ran the roundhouse, and, in Mr. Hori's case, they fed the men who did the heavy lifting. The cafe was a success, but Mr. Hori's tenure was brief. By 1910, he had sold the business to another Japanese immigrant, Mr. T. K. Shoji, who renamed it the Whitefish Cafe.

The building itself is a classic example of Western commercial architecture, which is to say, it was built quickly, cheaply, and with a facade designed to make it look taller and more important than it actually was. The false front is a wonderful American invention, a wooden lie told to the street to convince passersby that the town is a metropolis in the making. Behind the facade, the building is a simple rectangle, practical and unpretentious.

Over the years, the building has housed a variety of enterprises, each reflecting the changing fortunes of Whitefish. It has been a restaurant, a pool hall, a clothing store, and a sporting goods shop. It survived the fires that periodically swept through wooden towns, and it survived the economic panics that swept through the nation. It stands today as one of the oldest commercial buildings in Whitefish, a quiet survivor of the town's raucous early days.

The Japanese community that Mr. Hori and Mr. Shoji belonged to faced increasing prejudice in the years leading up to World War II, and many were forced to leave the area. The Hori Cafe Building remains, however, a physical reminder of their presence and their contribution to the building of the West. It is a small building, but it tells a large story, if you know how to read the wood and the brick.

See also

• Hori Cafe Building at Whitefish, Flathead County (Montana Historical Society, erected 2000)
• Great Northern Railway Passenger and Freight Depot and Division Office