[2] Founded in 1919 by 21-year-old portraitist and scenic designer Cleon "Throck" Throckmorton,[3] the back-alley establishment functioned as a speakeasy after the passage of the Sheppard Bone-Dry Act by the U.S. Congress in March 1917 that imposed a ban on alcoholic beverages in the District of Columbia.

[5] The speakeasy's name derived from the androgynous title character of a comic strip popular at the time,[6] and this namesake communicated that the venue catered to clientele of all sexual persuasions, including polysexual and homosexual patrons.

[11] After existing for over half-a-decade and surviving a number of police raids,[12] the speakeasy presumably closed by 1926 when Cleon Throckmorton and his first wife Kathryn "Kat" Mullin relocated to Greenwich Village in New York City.

[14] Situated at Number 3 Green Court (38°54′14″N 77°01′52″W / 38.904°N 77.031°W / 38.904; -77.031) near Washington, D.C.'s Thomas Circle, The Krazy Kat speakeasy existed in an economically-depressed urban district colloquially known as the Latin Quarter.

[31] A model, sketch artist and later costume designer, "Kat" Mullin was widely known for her radio and stage performances as a ukulele player and singer with the Crandall Saturday Nighters.

[35] The Washington Post crime reporter described The Krazy Kat as being "something like a Greenwich Village coffee house", featuring gaudy pictures painted by futurists and impressionists.

[14] Jeb Alexander, a gay Washington, D.C. resident, described the transgressive venue in his personal diary as a "bohemian joint in an old stable up near Thomas Circle... [a gathering place for] artists, musicians, atheists [and] professors".

When the hours wane, and the candles burn low, and the big fire glows, and over the cigarettes and the cider, the coffee and sandwiches, what do they chat of, these men and women, boys and girls, the would-be writers, painters, poets of tomorrow?

[39] Flambeau noted that, by 1922, "in imitation of the Krazy Kat, other bohemian restaurants sprang up in Washington to supply the demand" such as the Silver Sea Horse and Carcassonne in Georgetown.

[40] During its tumultuous half-decade existence, municipal authorities repeatedly declared The Kat to be a "disorderly house" (a euphemism for a brothel), and the metropolitan police raided the establishment on several occasions during the Prohibition period.

[13] During this same period, Mullin sued Throckmorton for divorce after four years of marriage on December 17, 1926, after catching him in an extramarital affair with an unidentified woman—possibly film actress Juliet Brenon—in their Greenwich Village apartment in Manhattan.

[46] Throckmorton became one of the most prolific scenic designers for Broadway plays in New York City, and his Greenwich Village apartment that he shared with Juliet Brenon became an after-hours salon for thespians, artists, and intellectuals such as Noël Coward, Norman Bel Geddes, Eugene O'Neill and E.E.