The White Horse Inn is a gay bar located at 6551 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland's Bushrod Park neighborhood. It officially opened in 1933 but is rumored to have operated as a gay speakeasy since before the end of Prohibition.
- Venue
- White Horse Inn (Oakland, California)
- Town
- Oakland, US
The White Horse Inn is a gay bar located at 6551 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland's Bushrod Park neighborhood. It officially opened in 1933 but is rumored to have operated as a gay speakeasy since before the end of Prohibition. It is said to be the oldest continuously operating gay bar in the United States, along with Cafe Lafitte in New Orleans, Louisiana which has also operated since 1933. The White Horse is situated geographically near the Oakland-Berkeley border and in close proximity to the University of California, Berkeley campus. Early history of the White Horse Inn is unclear; it officially states that it opened in 1933 following the passage of the 21st Amendment, although it is rumored to have operated as a speakeasy during the Prohibition period. Records show that local businessman Abraham C. Karski, founder of the Grand Lake Theater, ordered the construction of the building and founded the bar. At its opening in the 1930s, the White Horse was not explicitly a gay bar but rather a "gay-friendly bar [with a] no-touching policy" and Chinese restaurant. Advertisements from the 1940s state that the restaurant offered "exotic Chinese dinners and distinctive American cuisine." It was likely frequented by factory and port workers from nearby industrial centers as well as soldiers and sailors, especially during the Great Depression and World War II. The bar's small distance to the local university meant many students visited the bar; a patron who began attending the White Horse Inn in 1948 says the bar had a "reputation for being Cal's gay life." Police raids began targeting gay and lesbian bars in the San Francisco Bay Area intensely from the 1950s onward. A variety of laws including "public morals" and sexual perversion ordinances were used to harass bars and their patrons. This occurred in the midst of post-war politics and anti-gay attitudes which "associated gay men with poor morals and weak wills," placing homosexual perspectives in opposition to national polici