Pastime Pool Hall

By editor

Whitefish, Flathead County, Montana

Built in 1903 as the Dodge House, this building spent decades as the Pastime before becoming the Bulldog Saloon in the early 1980s—named for Whitefish High’s teams—and remaining a flamboyant sports bar into the 2000s. In the 1910s it was Houston’s Hall, with railroad physician Dr. Houston’s offices upstairs; later doctors followed. The second floor hosted boxing, Masons, and Eastern Star, then slumped into storage for city Christmas decorations.

Downstairs survived Prohibition on soft drinks, cigars, fruit, and pool tables favored by railroaders. In 1933 the Whitefish Pilot noted a beer license for J. L. Akey; the Akey family ran the Pastime for about fifty years before later owners, including Linda and Buck May.

A railroad town needs a place where shift workers can lose an evening without leaving the platform district. The Pastime was that place—under several names, through dry years and wet ones, with a second floor that kept reinventing itself.