For most of the 20th century, this corner was the site of the Cadillac Hotel. The Cadillac was not the first hotel in town; that distinction went to the Dodge Hotel, on Central Avenue between First and Second Streets. But with its proximity to the railroad depot, the three-story Cadillac, built in 1907, became a popular hostelry, catering not only to railroaders and passengers but to denizens of Central Avenue bars and gambling places.

In 1922, J.J. Cremans built the New Cadillac Hotel, above right, which was to stand for the nest 72 years. Owners through there years included John Bender, Dick and Martha Zerr, and later their son Jack, three skiers, Nancy Montgomery, Bob Cavill and Jack Tidyman. and Mel and Evelun Stenslie. The Cadillac Bar, which adjoined the hotel rooms on the south, was a town gathering place; an organist there for a short time at mid-century was Joan Smith, who later became Mrs. Ray Kroc, wife of the McDonald's magnate and well-known philanthropist.

The bar and restaurant was rechristened the Hanging Tree in the 1960s, after the book of the same name by author Dorothy Johnson, who was a resident of Whitefish.

The hotel, suffering the effects of old age and disuse, eventually was closed. In 1994, the old brick building was demolished to make way for construction of a modern brewery, the Great Northern Brewing Co. The bar and restaurant later became the Glacier Grande, the Serano's and then Paddle & Axe. In 2006 under new ownership of Bill Foley, it reopened as Craggy Range Bar & Grill.

Erected by Stumptown Historical Society and Whitefish Community Foundation.

This is the site of one of the oldest buildings in Whitefish. It opened as the Spraque Saloon in 1905, and. under a succession of ownerships, the building has catered to thirsty local residents for over 110 years.

In 1911, it was known as the Spraque-Danhisser Saloon, run by Fred Spraque and Henry Dashisser. Henry eventually opened his own billiard parlor across the street which returned the building back to the singularly named Spraque Saloon. In the early 1930s William N. Parent established his own billiard hall here. Billiards were a popular pastime for Whitefish folks in those days. By 1934, with prohibition having ended, the building was back to being a Pub. It was then named the Darnall and Schafer Saloon.

A long period of family ownership began in 1940, when Bill Murr bought the saloon and renamed it the Club Bar for the next 27 years.

Pat Casey, who was Murr's stepson, took over ownership in 1967 and changed the name to Casey's. For 36 years Pat continued to run it as a working folk's watering place also serving food from a small kitchen.

When Richard Kramer bought the colorful town landmark in 2003, he retained the name of Casey's. The aged building had been spruced up from time to time but was still the original structure that Mr. Spraque opened over 100 years ago.

Michael Goguen purchased Casey's in January 20ll. With the building being too irreparable for modern building codes, and wanting to honor its heritage as the oldest bar in Whitefish, construction of a new Casey's began in August of 2011. It reopened as a far more modern building in time for Labor Day weekend 2012.

It still stands on the same corner, and as its sign proclaims, it is still Casey's Bar.

Erected by Stumptown Historical Society and Whitefish Community Foundation.

This staid old brick building has a rich and colorful history.

The Duncan Samson Block, built in 1910 at a cost of about $32,000, was the third or fourth brick building in the fledgling town of Whitefish. Mrs. Jemima Duncan, a widow who had moved to Whitefish from Kalispell a few years earlier, saw opportunity in constructing a rooming house for employees of the Great Northern Railway, which had just named Whitefish as a division point on its line.

Along the way, she met J.A. Samson, a tie contractor for the railroad, and they were married the same years the building was completed. They set up housekeeping in one of the downstairs apartments. Many of the building's tenants were single young men, and as they married, Mrs. Samson advanced into the real estate business, finding small homes to sell them. Her office was in her apartment.

Although the building always has been primarily an apartment house, over the years it also housed a shoe store, a couple of grocery stores, a succession of chiropractor's offices starting in the 1930s, and a tax preparation business. In 1982, local contractor Gary Tallman bought the building and carried out a major modernization of the housing units, selling them as condominiums. In the 21st Century the Block, still essentially an apartment house, belongs to the owners of eight second-floor apartments and several main-floor businesses, including a coffee shop, a landscape architect and yes, a chiropractor office. Its exterior differs very little from the sturdy brick structure that rose along Second Street more than a century ago. In early 2012, the owners' association financed improvements, readying the venerable building for a new century.

Erected by Stumptown Historical Society and Whitefish Community Foundation.

Not long after the Great Northern Railway announced its plans for a division point in Whitefish, Presbyterian missionary E. M. Ellis and Kalispell minister Alexander Pringle traveled by bicycle and rowboat to visit the site. Soon after, Reverend Pringle canvassed logging and railroad camps for donations of cash and labor to construct a sanctuary. By December 1903, Whitefish had its first church. The First Presbyterian Church moved several times in the early years. By 1919, it had once again outgrown its building; to accommodate congregants, the church held services in the Masonic Lodge while planning a new house of worship. Under direction of physician and active church member W. W. Taylor, the building committee devised detailed drawings, which the Spokane architectural firm Rigg and Vantyne modified only slightly. The building committee chose a Romanesque Revival style design, considered less ostentatious and more appropriate for a Protestant church than the competing Gothic tradition. Romanesque Revival churches featured masonry construction, heavily arched windows, bands of stylized decoration, and towers—in this case a Norman style square tower that serves as the building’s main entrance. The one-story building featured a large daylight basement with a high ceiling, designed to provide clearance for a full-sized basketball court. Community members donated the large art glass windows ornamenting the sanctuary. Among them are two purchased by Japanese railroad workers for $700 in honor of churchwoman Elizabeth Peck, who taught the men English. A tribute to Peck, the windows also commemorate Whitefish’s once-thriving Japanese community and the church’s long history of community service.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

When the two-story 1st National Bank of Whitefish building was erected in 1910, the Whitefish Pilot declared in the headline: "Stability of Town Firmly Established."

The bank had been organized in 1907 with capital stock of $25,000. Its building, designed by a Kalispell architect, was constructed of brick manufactured by P.J. Hoffman & Sons of Whitefish. The structure complied with a new city ordinance requiring all downtown buildings to be fireproof.

And so it remained until, ironically, the building was all but destroyed by an early-morning fire in October, 1992. By that time, it no longer housed the 1st National which had moved into a new building a block to the west in 1974. Whitefish contractor Gary Tallman had purchased the old building and remodeled it into business condominiums. Tenants of the condominiums at the time of the fire included a law firm, a surveyor's office, a dental office and a business that fashioned false teeth.

Determining that the fire-ravaged building could not be salvaged, the law firm, Hedman, Hileman & Lacosta, bought the land from the other condo owners and built the present office building, which was designed by architect John Constenius and was constructed by Swank Enterprises of Kalispell. It was completed in January 1994.

Erected by Stumptown Historical Society and Whitefish Community Foundation.

Whitefish served as a division point for the Great Northern Railway from its founding in 1904 until 1955. In 1925, one railroader called it “the most distinctively railroad town on the whole Great Northern system.” The second floor of this 1928 Tudor style building, designed by railroad architect Thomas McMahon, housed the railway’s division offices. Serving as a hub for passenger and freight transportation, the first floor housed the yard office, freight and baggage rooms, warm room, ticket office, general waiting room, telegraph office, men’s smoking room, and ladies’ rest room. Competition from automobiles and trucks had already begun to decrease railroad traffic, so not many depots were built in the 1920s, the height of Tudor popularity; thus Tudor style depots are rare. This depot’s Tudor features include its high pointed roof, stucco and decorative half timbering above clapboard, and multiple groups of tall, narrow windows. Its decoratively carved brackets and rafter tails and second-floor balconies echo similar detailing at Glacier National Park chalets, visually connecting Whitefish to Glacier, a tourist destination widely promoted by the railroad. In the 1980s, Whitefish preservationists worked to preserve this magnificent building, which still serves as a passenger and freight depot. Railroad depots are one of the few types of buildings for which the back (facing the town) is as important as the front (facing the tracks). The stylish façades on both front and back of the Whitefish Depot continue to welcome travelers and reflect the town’s railroad history.

Erected by Montana Historical Society.

This architecturally unremarkable building has a colorful history, having gone from an early-20th-century blacksmith shop to an early-21st-century liquor store, with several other incarnations along the way.

Built of locally manufactured concrete blocks in about 1920, it was used by Harry Hotel, the first owner, to shoe horses and create decorative iron work; his son, Fred, followed him in the business.

In the 1940s, with automobiles now far more important than horses, Art Harlow bought the building and transformed it into Harlow-Beck Chevrolet. The automobile agency operated here from 1946 to 1952, when it moved to more expansive quarters at the north end of Central Avenue.

Don Swisher purchased this building from Harlow and rented it to the National Guard as an armory from 1952 to 1959. After the Guard moved to its own permanent armory, Swisher sold the building to the Raymond Martin family, who remodeled it into Whitefish's first laundromat (and later added dry cleaning). It remained a laundromat after Bill and Peg Moir bought the building in 1976. Both the Martins and the Moirs lived in an apartment at the back of the building during their tenures there.

The Moirs sold the building, still a laundromat, to Chuck Bronson in 1987, and a beauty shop subsequently opened in the rear of the building.

In 2003, after extensive remodeling, the venerable structure reopened in modern dress as the Whitefish Liquor Store.

Erected by Stumptown Historical Society and Whitefish Community Foundation.

The corner drugstore: an American icon.

Haines Drug opened on this corner in the heart of downtown Whitefish in 1926, having earlier shared the brick building (or "block", as such structures were then called) directly across the street on the northeast corner with the Star Clothing and Shoe Co.

J.A. Robinson, a jeweler, is thought to have built the first business at this site, 148 Central Avenue, in 1905. By 1911, Public Drug Crawford and Larter was listed as the owner; in ensuing years, the business became known as Crawford and Sewell Drugs, then simply Crawford Drugs, and finally Public Drug again. Pharmacist Bob Haines, already running the drugstore across the street, bought Public Drug in 1925. The following year he remodeled the building so that the entrance faced Central Avenue, rather than Second Street, and called it Haines Drug, and sometimes Haines Public Drug.

Ownership subsequently passed to Haines' son, Roger, then Ben Tempel and Ord Clark, and in 1984, to Jim MacKenzie, all of them pharmacists. Several other drugstores have played a part in Whitefish history, As of 2002, Haines remains.

Erected by

Stumptown Historical Society and Whitefish Community Foundation.

This Whitefish landmark has a long and colorful history, centering around the Japanese immigrant, M.M. Hori, who had come to the Flathead Valley as a house-boy for the family of Charles Conrad, a major figure in the founding of Kalispell. Conrad gave Hori 10 acres of Whitefish land, and he soon became a successful truck farmer, Hori opened a cafe and bakery in the north part of this building in the early 20th Century, and in 1918, he bought what was then called the Northern Hotel just to the south.

Hori made extensive improvements to the buildings and operated the Hori Cafe and Hotel until his death in 1931; his wife continued operating it until it was leased to C.C.C. Smith in 1942. Smith's business closed after only a couple of months and the building remained empty until Jack Erinton bought it at a court sale in 1944 and reopened it as The Palm Hotel, leasing its operation to longtime residents Mr. and. Mrs. R.H. Mackey. In 1946, the cafe section was converted into a store, later occupied by several small, short-lived businesses.

Local businessman Jack Sesler and his family purchased the building in the late 1970's, cleaned it up and renamed it The Remington, with a fine-dining restaurant called Frederic's. The building has had a succession of owners since the Seslers sold it in the mid-80's. It entered the 21st Century under the ownership of Ted Sproul, featuring a casino and Italian restaurant.

Erected by Stumptown Historical Society and Whitefish Community Foundation.

History was made on the night of June, 13, 1916 when the Orpheum Theatre opened on this site. This building was purchased by Lloyd J. Sissel and converted into what the press called "one of the classiest playhouses in the Northwest". He remodeled the building by putting in a new front, an inclined floor and "up-to-date equipment".

The first silent film shown was "The Soul Market" and starred the gifted emotional actress, Mme Petrova. The film dealt with live along the Great White Way and behind the scenes of a big Broadway theatre. It was followed by a Sidney Drew comedy and reportedly was received enthusiastically by the Whitefish audience. The 1916 ticket price was 25 cents.

The Orpheum was a gathering place for Whitefish residents for many years as was its neighbor the Lake Theatre, opened later by Lloyd Sissel in the building immediately adjacent to the Orpheum.

Erected by Stumptown Historical Society and Whitefish Community Foundation.

Historical records on this building are incomplete, but (it) is believed that it has alway housed an alcohol-related business. From 1915 to 1919, it was the home of the Kalispell Malting and Brewing Co. For most of its existence since then, it has been known as the Palace Bar, a typical small-town, Western watering hole.

In its early days, according to local lore, the building featured a brothel on the top floor. That time is long gone, and the place has had a succession of respectable owners over the years, including one-time member of the Whitefish City Council and an attorney who eventually was to become a district judge and later a federal magistrate.

Although the decor, like the bar itself, has never been pretentious, the Palace features a beautiful old wood backbar, said to have come up the Missouri River by steamer to Fort Benton, overland by wagon to Flathead Lake and up the lake to old Demersville, the Flathead Valley's original settlement.

In more recent times, the Palace became known for its games of skill and chance, most notably the mouse races. Live mice were auctioned off to bar patrons and were sent scurrying along 1-inch ropes stretched side-by-side on an 8-foot course. The winning pair... mouse and owner... were placed in a winner's circle and photographed together for posterity. The Palace, not much changed in nearly a century, remains a spot for local residents and tourists alike.

Erected by Stumptown Historical Society and Whitefish Community Foundation.

This venerable building has a long and colorful history as a Whitefish watering place and entertainment center. Called the Dodge House when it was built in 1903, it eventually became known as the Pastime bar, a name it retained for many years, until it was renamed the Bulldog Saloon (in honor of the Whitefish Bulldog high school athletic teams) in the early 1980's. As of 2002, it remained the Bulldog, a flamboyantly decorated sports bar.

In the teen years of the twentieth century, the building was called Houston's Hall, after Dr. Houston, a railroad physician and surgeon who had offices on the second floor. The medical offices later were occupied by other doctors. Occasionally used for boxing matches over the years, the second floor also served as an early meeting place for Masons and the Order of the Eastern Star. The space later fell into disrepair and was used for storage of city Christmas decorations and other items.

Meanwhile the main business survived Prohibition by selling soft drinks, cigars and fruit and offering billiards and pool tables for the recreation of locals, many of them railroaders. In 1933, the Whitefish

Pilot reported that a beer license had been issued to J.L. Akey, the new owner of the Pastime. The Akey family was associated with the Pastime for some fifty years. Earl and Jacqueline (Akey) Schommer were the last of the family to run the establishment, and after another ownership change, it was purchased by Linda and Buck May.

Erected by Stumptown Historical Society and Whitefish Community Foundation.

This building, built in 1921 by J.A. Robinson, has housed a variety of businesses in the ensuing decades. When construction was announced, the Whitefish Pilot called the lot in the heart of the emerging downtown complex "the most valuable piece of vacant property in the city." Cost of the land and planned brick building was estimated at $30,000, construction was of the same type as the new Presbyterian Church a block to the south.

Two established businesses, the Star Clothing and Shoe Co. and Haines Drug, opened for business here on October 3. 1921. Both moved out in 1925. In 1945, the Frederick family acquired the building. Later it was owned briefly by jeweler Joe Gerber and his wife Hazel, then by Clyde "Buddy" Decker and his wife Florence, and subsequently by dentist John Petersen.

For many years, a pharmacy variously called Neville Drug, City Pharmacy and Chalet City Pharmacy occupied part of the building. Van Aken clothing was a tenant for a few years in the 1950's. In the 60's and 70's, Florence Decker operated a popular women's clothing store here; after her death, the shop has a succession of owners. As of 2002,

Dr Petersen continued to practice in the east part of the building, and specialty shops run by new owner, Ladd Lincoln, occupied the other parts.

Erected by Stumptown Historical Society and Whitefish Community Foundation.

The Bruck, a custom-designed bus-truck, has a unique place in the history of Whitefish and of the Great Northern Railway, an important residence in the life of the town.

Because the Empire Builder and Westerns Star passenger trains stoped in Whitefish, passengers from Kalispell, 15 miles to the south, had to be transported to and from Whitefish... a trip originally made on a short-line, gas-electric train known as the Galloping Goose. In 1950, after 46 years of operation, the Galloping Goose was abandoned for economic reason.

A GN passenger bus and mail-express trucks provided service between the two towns for a short time. The railroad replaced them with the Bruck, built to Gn specifications by the Kenworth Motor Truck Co. of Seattle. The "tastefully furnished" 39-foot vehicle had room for 21 passengers and their baggage, as well as a spacious freight and baggage compartment in the rear. It boasted a 220-horsepower engine and a 10-speed transmission. The floor was the same height as railroad car, for ease of loading and unloading. Operrating on the highway rather than on the circuitous rail line, the Bruck saved time and money.

The Bruck, painted in GN's familiar orange and green, averaged six round trips daily, starting on July 17, 1951, and covering the route for more than 20 years. Times changed, however, and Amtrak, the federalized passenger service, retired the Bruck in 1972. The vehicle ended up in the railroad's maintenance department.

Its glory days over, the Bruck languished for years in a salvage yard in Great Falls... until a Michigan couple, Larry and Connie Hoffman, happened to notice it there while attending a meeting of the Great Northern Railway Historical Society. Larry, a railroad buff, set out to buy the Bruck, but he died before the purchase could be made.

In 1999, Connie bought the derelict Bruck and donated it to the Stumptown Historical Society, which went to work to restore it. After hundred of hours of volunteer work and an expenditure of about $20,000, the refurbished Bruck, with authentic paint and fittings, is home to stay... a memorial not only to Larry Hoffman, but to the colorful story of the railroad in Whitefish.

Erected by Stumptown Historical Society and Whitefish Community Foundation.

Built by the Great Northern Railway in 1927, the Whitefish Depot is not only a local landmark but is recognized fondly by hundred of thousands of people who have passed through Whitefish by train over the years. The building’s chalet-style architecture and gardens that surround it create a distinctive Whitefish “trademark.”

The railroad’s decision to construct a 36-by-150-foot building, to replace a much smaller depot at the north end of Central Avenue, occasioned a banner headline in the Whitefish Pilot in August, 1927. The three-story structure – one story for the depot and two for offices – would cost about $60,000. Butler Construction Co. of Seattle won the contract. In the late 1980’s, Whitefish almost lost its famous depot when the railroad, by then the Burlington Northern, decided to scrap it. But the Stumptown Historical Society, a group formed by local folks to preserve the town’s history, refused to let it go. The Society bought the building for $1 and then raised $800,000 to renovate it, much of the work done by Whitefish volunteers. The Society uses rental fees from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe,

Amtrak and a few office tenants to maintain the depot. In 2002, the Society had the building repainted in historically correct colors, a project that cost three-fourth as much as the entire 1927 construction cost.

More than 50,000 people pass through the depot each year.

Erected by Stumptown Historical Society.