Like a number of other gay bars from the mid-twentieth century, the White Horse had no windows to the street until just a few years ago, dating as it does to a time when homosexuality was a criminal offense. Long before gay marriage, or even living openly, was a possibility, the White Horse served the East Bay’s LGBT community. The Double Header in Seattle, opened in 1934, is a close second. And in fact the entire building with the bar in it was moved about a block, into Oakland, in 1936 when a law was enacted prohibiting the sale of alcohol within a mile of the campus.Īs the San Francisco Chronicle points out, there’s another gay bar, Cafe Lafitte in New Orleans, which may be tied in official age with the White Horse, having also “opened” coincidentally in 1933, but it has changed locations once since then. Its proximity to the Berkeley campus, but just over the border in Oakland where liquor licenses were historically easier to get, was an obvious factor in attracting its early clientele. The current, open front patio is only a few years old.
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