Shorty Young's Office



 

Shorty Young's Office looks ready to receive visitors in this
display beneath Havre's streets.




            A short walk from the Pioneer Meat Market, the visitor enters “Shorty” Young’s private office.  This was the secluded home of the man who today is known as Havre’s vice king.

            Shorty Young, whose nickname accurately described his 5’ 2” inch frame, arrived in Havre by rail in 1894 without money enough to pay for a haircut.  But that quickly changed when he  took up employment in a local saloon.  His success at bilking patrons out of their hard-earned money at Havre’s wide open gaming tables and his introduction of a new dice game called Chuck-a-Luck or Hazard, quickly made Shorty a wealthy man.  In 1898 Shorty built The Montana European Hotel and Grill. More commonly known at “The Honky Tonk,” the three-story building, while not the first of Shorty's properties, quickly became the most popular and bawdy 
saloon in Havre.  The Honky Tonk offered a wide array of entertainment including gambling, prize fights, a restaurant and burlesque shows.
             Just west of The Honky Tonk was another of Shorty’s properties -- the Parlour House, which employed only the classiest ladies openly involved in the world’s oldest profession.  Behind both structures was a U-shaped row of cribs that employed slightly less elegant ladies.
            Shortly after Young opened The Honky Tonk he also began construction of the Mint Saloon.  Designed to cater to a more “high brow” clientele, the Mint sported marble-topped tables, gold colored chandeliers, and a mahogany back-bar that still exists today and is believed to be the oldest in Montana.
            During prohibition, Shorty turned his attention to the illegal supply of alcohol to his customers.  Thanks to his wealth and political power, Young was more successful than most at playing the cat-and-mouse game with contraband liquor.  He is reported to have been the power behind a sindicate of bootleggers and liquor importers who supplied alcohol throughout the northwest and as far east as Chicago.  But whether he realized it at the time or not, Shorty’s best days were behind him.  By the time prohibition ended, so too had ended the homesteader days, the wild and woolly cowboy days and the equally wild railroaders days.
            The seeds of respectability had been sown and Havre was beginning to reap the fruit of civilized behavior.  The time of the Honky Tonk and cribs had passed and Havre’s reputation as the rowdiest town in the west was evaporating.
            Young was a man out of step with the times.  Although Shorty tried to revive his former days of glory by operating a somewhat more respectable establishment called the Chain Lake Inn, bad investment schemes and the changing times blocked Young’s chance to repeat his former success.
            Young died of a heart attack on Sept. 15, 1944 in the bedroom of the old Parlour House.  His wealth totaled only about $60,000 and about 40 pieces of property.  His will established an endowment that is still used today to finance various charities and service organizations in Havre. Shorty Young’s office is not the first exhibit visitors notice as they enter the stillness of Havre Beneath the Streets, but it typifies the spirit and the “anything goes” attitude of the era “the underground” represents.
            Decorated in a style reflecting the times, the office contains all of the accouterments one would have expected to see in an office of that day. Old books and papers, an antique
typewriter, and roll-top desk give the room a comfortable and lived-in look that gives the impression that Shorty himself will soon stroll through the door and take his seat behind the desk.  Hanging from the ceiling, but not original to the office, are two of the gold colored chandeliers that once dangled from the ceiling of Shorty’s Mint Saloon, which was located at ground level directly above the office.