Cain's Coffee Building rises five stories in white glazed brick at 1 NW Twelfth Street, just off Broadway. This white glazed brick Art Deco revival building was built in 1918; it rises five stories high with a full basement and contains 50,000 square feet (4,600 m2). It was constructed as a CCC Citizen's Conservation Corps project and has housed an Extract Company, the Seelye Mattress Company, and, most famously, Cain's Coffee Company.
The company that became Cain's Coffee was established in 1919 by William Morgan Cain Sr., who was born in 1894 and came to Choctaw, Oklahoma, in 1900 with his widowed mother. Cain joined the Navy in 1911; his tour of duty included a trip to Brazil, where he was fascinated with the enormous stacks of bagged coffee on the docks. After his discharge he worked for the Western Coffee and Tea Co. of Oklahoma City, and in 1919 launched a one-man operation to roast, grind, package and deliver coffee to retail grocers.
Cain served as president until 1937, when he was elected chairman and Richard J. Clements, an investor and officer since 1932, was named president. Both Cain and Clements worked and advocated the policy of buying. Picture young William Cain gazing at towering coffee sacks on the docks of Brazil, the spark that built this place.