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Embers opened in 1969 and was a raucous favorite until it shuttered. Darcelle XV, the beloved drag club now home to more bachelorette parties than twinks, opened in 1967. The Harbor Club, a dive by the water at First and Yamhill, was deemed so seedy US armed forces forbade visiting members from patronizing it. In the mid-20th century, the scene hit its stride. Local authorities wound up arresting more than 15 men-Oregon’s sodomy law wouldn’t be repealed for another 60 years-in what came to be known as the Vice Scandal of 1912.
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In 1912, Benjamin Trout was arrested on shoplifting charges and threw a legendary Hail Mary: he’d been corrupted, he said, by sodomites, many of whom lived at the YMCA downtown at Sixth and Taylor. I wasn’t exactly starved for community, but still, I had a lingering sense I’d just missed a party that had been rolling for decades.īy most accounts, Portland’s first gay bar was the YMCA. In my first few months at home, I went to a drag show at the Local Lounge on MLK and hit Pride events at Crush in inner Southeast. Embers, the beloved Old Town dance club that carried generations of queers above me through Nixon and beyond, had been closed a little over a year. And when I took it over, I got rid of the crap that had been going on for years, but it's still an Eagle.I moved back to Oregon last spring. "There's a reason this bar is cleaned up. I came in here and saw things that made me feel squirmy. That alleged sexual behavior, by the way, used to be one of this club's main draws. 6, Lanagan's own birthday, due to what Wilgus calls "inappropriate behavior" that is no longer tolerated in his club (read: sex). EAGLE also partakes in fundraisers which benefit the Portland LGBT community. He was kicked out twice-first during the summer of 2006 and again on Saturday, Jan. EAGLE Portland 835 N Lombard St, Portland, USA, OR 97217 map Catering to the local bears, daddies, leather fans and friends, EAGLE Portland hosts various weekly events including uniform/underwear parties, karaoke, BBQ, move screenings and dance parties with DJ, etc. Which Wilgus thinks one of the real reasons Lanagan is "stealing" his business's name isn't so much about the actual word-a word he admits he may never use again-but because Pat had been ousted from the Eagle.
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He believes the Eagle is for a dwindling older audience and scares more young gay people than it attracts. The New Eagle Creek Saloon, the first East Coast institutional presentation of the artists installation reimagining the first Black-owned gay bar in. "The Eagle has served its purpose, but I think leather bars are dying," said Wilgus about his fetid fetish space. I talked to Wilgus, 43, who has owned the club for the past two and a half years, on Tuesday about what he felt prompted this current state of gay bar affairs. The second email, which landed in my inbox a half-hour later, announced Casey's, a new "all-inclusive" gay bar Wilgus plans to open in an intriguing Old Town venue next month that'll be nothing like his Eagle. The first one was an all-out attack on "bottom dweller" Lanagan, including the info that Wilgus had reregistered the Eagle as his business name even though he's planning to close the Eagle as early as the middle of next month. That's when Wilgus sent out two emails to local media. That's despite the fact another bar owner, Karl Wilgus, is already using that name for his downtown leather-friendly men's bar (QW, "Flipping the Bird," Dec. 10, before hading to an adult-video expo in Vegas. Things came to a head a few weeks back when I reported Pat Lanagan, a 48-year-old NoPo bar owner, had registered four variations of "Eagle" with the state so he could change the name of his bar Urge to Eagle Portland, which he did on Wednesday, Jan. And it's more than just a fight over a name it's also a fight over what a gay bar is-or, well, was.