20 Images from St. Louis' LGBT History

AIDS Walk. St. Louis AIDS Walk fundraiser From All Walks of Life was started in 1989 and operated by the AIDS Foundation of St. Louis. Over the course of a decade, the annual event raised millions of dollars for St. Louis–area AIDS organizations and charities. The funding provided treatment, counseling, and support services for people with HIV/AIDS throughout the St. Louis region. The event was held in several locations over the years, including Forest Park and Kiener Plaza. It was one of St. Louis’s first LGBT-related events to attract mainstream business and media sponsorships. It also provided a forum for LGBT, LGBT allies, and straight audiences to work together and form common bonds during the early days of the AIDS crisis. (Courtesy of Scott Lokitz.)

Blue Max. The St. Louis Blue Max motorcycle and leather club was founded in 1975 by a group led by Jerry Wickham and later reorganized by Bob Garrett. The original home bar was the Red Bull in East St. Louis. In 1978, the home bar was the Mine Shaft (downstairs at FACES in East St. Louis), followed by Clementine’s in 1980, the Outpost (later Eagle) in 1993, and JJ’s Clubhouse in 2000. The group has actively partnered with both local and national clubs since its founding and is known for its fundraising for area charities. (Both courtesy of St. Louis LGBT History Project.)

Tennessee Williams. Pictured at the front far left with his Washington University classmates, Tennessee Williams often expressed disdain for St. Louis. However, later in life, he acknowledged that his formative years in the city, from age 7 to 26, profoundly shaped his writing. In St. Louis, Williams came to know the female psyche through his Southern belle mother, Edwina, and beloved sister, Rose, and came to idealize and hate the male persona embodied in his father, Cornelius. St. Louis would indeed be the semiautobiographical inspiration for his most acclaimed work. In 1944, Williams’s The Glass Menagerie had a successful run in Chicago and then opened on Broadway. This “memory play” contained several aspects of his family life in St. Louis. Williams was outed by Time magazine in the 1950s. During his life, he battled depression and alcoholism. His longtime partner, Frank Merlo, died in 1961 from lung cancer, devastating Williams and leading to a 1969 stay in St. Louis’s Barnes Hospital psych ward. He died in 1983 and is buried near his mother in St. Louis’s Calvary Cemetery. (Courtesy of Department of Special Collections, University Archives, Washington University Libraries.)

Christening. A lesbian couple participates in the christening of their adopted daughter in a ceremony in the suburbs of St. Louis. This July 1973 event highlights how LGBT parents maintained traditions that mirrored their straight counterparts. (Courtesy of Betty Neeley.)

Clara Louise Thompson. In 1906, Clara Louise Thompson graduated from Washington University. She would serve as one of the prominent members of the Advisory Council of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage and as president of Latin at Rockford College, Illinois. She is the only woman to have won the American Fellowship at the Classical School in Rome. She was the romantic inspiration for many poems penned by noted lesbian professor Jeanette Howard Foster. (Courtesy of Library of Congress.)

First St. Louis Pride Event. As the St. Louis LGBT community entered a new decade in the 1980s, history was made with the first “official” LGBT pride event in April 1980. The idea for such an event was sparked by St. Louis’s participation in the October 1979 gay march on Washington, DC. Those who participated came back energized to host an event in St. Louis. Several local groups were formed, including the Magnolia Committee. After months of planning and organizing, a week of activities were held. At the end of the week, hundreds gathered for the Lesbians and Gays Walk for Charity, which went down Lindell Boulevard in the Central West End to Washington University’s quadrangle. To get the parade permit approved by city hall, the organizers had to brand the march as a charity event that raised funds for area social service agencies. (Above, courtesy of Missouri History Museum, St. Louis; at left, Jim Pfaff.)

First St. Louis Pride Event. As the St. Louis LGBT community entered a new decade in the 1980s, history was made with the first “official” LGBT pride event in April 1980. The idea for such an event was sparked by St. Louis’s participation in the October 1979 gay march on Washington, DC. Those who participated came back energized to host an event in St. Louis. Several local groups were formed, including the Magnolia Committee. After months of planning and organizing, a week of activities were held. At the end of the week, hundreds gathered for the Lesbians and Gays Walk for Charity, which went down Lindell Boulevard in the Central West End to Washington University’s quadrangle. To get the parade permit approved by city hall, the organizers had to brand the march as a charity event that raised funds for area social service agencies. (Above, courtesy of Missouri History Museum, St. Louis; at left, Jim Pfaff.)

Gateway MC. In 1973, the first St. Louis gay motorcycle and leather club, Gateway MC, was formed. Gateway MC, all of whose founding members were cyclists, required its members to have motorcycles, and most of the activities were cycle-related. Eventually, like other such clubs around the country, Gateway developed into a men’s social organization in which motorcycles were not the only focus. Activities broadened to encompass the Levi and leather community and fulfill the need for its own identity, events, and brotherhood. (Above, courtesy of Ed Laxton; at left, Linda Ledbetter.)

Helen Stephens. Nicknamed the “Fulton Flash” after her birthplace of Fulton, Missouri, Stephens was a noted athlete in sprint events. She garnered two Olympic gold medals at the 1936 Olympics held in Germany. Her time of 11.5 seconds was below the world record but was not recognized because a strong tailwind was present at the time of the race. During the 1936 Olympics, it was suggested that Stephens and her 100-meter rival, Stanis?awa Walasiewicz of Poland, who had both X0 and XY chromosomes, were in fact male. The Olympic Committee performed a physical check on Stephens and concluded that she was a woman. Stephens retired from athletics shortly after and played professional baseball and softball. From 1938 to 1952, she was the owner and manager of her own semiprofessional basketball team. Later in life, she was employed in the research division of the US Aeronautical Chart and Information Service in St. Louis. (Courtesy of Library of Congress.)

Jim Thomas. The Gay and Lesbian News-Telegraph was founded in the fall of 1981 by Jim Thomas (center), a local LGBT community leader. Within a year, the periodical was distributing no less than 10,000 copies within the Greater St. Louis area and throughout Missouri, southern Illinois, and central Indiana. Remaining in publication until 2000, it would later become the Vital Voice. (Courtesy of Jim Pfaff.)

March on Washington. St. Louis was represented at the first gay march on Washington, DC, in 1979 by a local contingent of LGBT leaders. This event inspired a formal effort to plan a St. Louis gay pride event. Several area organizations and committees worked towards this goal, and the end result was the first official St. Louis gay pride event occurring in April 1980. (Courtesy of Jim Pfaff.)

Montileone’s Café Espresso. In the 1950s, Sam Clark opened Montileone’s Café Espresso in the famed St. Louis Gaslight Square District. He named the café after the popular Gaslight Square artist Ralph Montileone, who was reportedly one of his lovers. It was one of the first coffee shops in St. Louis to have an espresso machine. “It was $800, and we thought we would die,”Clark said during a radio interview. “We nearly hocked our souls in order to pay for the darn thing.” (Courtesy of State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis.)

Sex, Inc. Founded in 1972 as a comedy drag troupe, Sex, Inc. raised money for area organizations. The group was wildly popular, producing its own annual calendar. In 1979, the members of Sex, Inc. bought the Miss Gay Missouri America pageant, which grew in attendance and participation during Sex, Inc.’s eight-year stewardship. (Courtesy of St. Louis LGBT History Project.)

PFLAG St. Louis. Since 1973, parents have joined together in different cities to support each other and their lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) children or family members. The St. Louis chapter of PFLAG is one of the oldest in the country, founded in 1977 as St. Louis FLAG. The chapter cofounders were Art and Marian Wirth and Rod and Carolyn Griffin. (Photograph by Wilbur Wegener, courtesy of Scott Lokitz.)

Pioneers. While St. Louis is the hometown of several famous LGBT folks, including Josephine Baker, William Burroughs, Andy Cohen, Thomas Dooley, and Tennessee Williams, its Hall of Fame also includes a cadre of activists, drag queens, leather men, artists, academics, politicians, and business types who have contributed to the rich fabric of the St. Louis LGBT community. (Photograph by Wilbur Wegener, courtesy of Scott Lokitz.)

Women’s Float Trip. Not to be outdone by their male counterparts, members of the St. Louis lesbian community created an annual float trip of their own. The original outing created in the 1980s would be later sponsored by Novak’s bar. (Courtesy of Betty Neeley.)

Clementine’s. When it closed in 2014, Clementine’s was St. Louis’s oldest gay bar. The bar was a mainstay for gay men and known for its annual Mardi Gras events, including the famous high-heel drag race. Entombed in the walls of the bar for many years were the ashes of legendary St. Louis drag queen Midnight Annie. Located in St. Louis’s Soulard neighborhood, the bar symbolized the LGBT community’s influence on the area’s rehabilitation of the surrounding neighborhood in the 1970s. (At right, courtesy of Steve L. Brawley; below, Linda Ledbetter.)

Leather Confab. These leather men enjoy a moment together during a campout and run at “the ranch” just outside of St. Louis in the late 1970s. A run is an event where members of motorcycle and leather clubs from different cities and regions meet at a central location. (Courtesy of St. Louis LGBT History Project.)

Lee Maynard. Performing as Gypsy Lee, Maynard entertained audiences in St. Louis and across the Midwest during the early 1970s. He won the title of Miss Gay Illinois 1975. An expert seamstress, Maynard made many of his own costumes, including a Cher-inspired Indian headdress with detailed beading and feathers. (Courtesy of Lee Maynard.)

Joe Cline. Known as Petrina Marie, Joe Cline was one of St. Louis’s favorite female impersonators, with his gravelly voice and saucy act. He was the longtime show director at FACES in East St. Louis and was crowned Miss Gay Missouri in 1995. He is pictured in front of the Kitty Kat Club in the 1970s. (Courtesy of Linda Ledbetter.)