Facts on Gays in Nevada
Las Vegas Sun,
August 19, 2000
By Kristen Peterson, Las Vegas Sun
When Dennis McBride mentions his latest project, the response is
usually preceded by bewilderment.
"First of all, their eyes kind of glaze over," the Boulder City
historian said. "Then they crinkle their nose and say, ‘What do you
mean, gay history?’ "
McBride, 45, has dedicated much of his life to digging up and
recounting Nevada history. He has written books on Hoover Dam,
Boulder City and Lake Mead. His thorough collections have made him a
valuable source for documentaries, newspapers and schools. Currently
he is working as an independent contractor at the Boulder Dam Hotel,
setting up a library and research facility for its museum.
But he says his work in progress, a book titled "Life in the Neon
Closet: A History of Gay Las Vegas," has been an endeavor more
personal and challenging than his other books.
"It’s a tremendously important undertaking, not just for me, but
for the whole community," he said. "Nothing like this has been done
before."
Many people say they didn’t know there was such a thing as gay
history, and a lot of gays "don’t know beyond when the last bar
opened," he said. "I had to show them that they’ve had a long, long
history here."
But in a town where few people — gay or straight — have roots,
finding that history has been a daunting task.
"Trying to find information on the gay history in Southern Nevada
before the 1970s is very difficult," McBride said. "Gay history is
so ephemeral, it just evaporates if not recorded — especially
outside of big cities."
Because of the stigma surrounding homosexuality, primary
resources such as letters and diaries don’t reveal gay accounts —
except for well-known people. But even those have been sanitized, he
said.
"That’s why it’s taking so long. I’ve had to create the archive
before I could even compile the information."
Archive created
Although he began the task in earnest four years ago, McBride
began creating the archive in 1977 when he came out as a gay man at
age 22. A collector, researcher and writer, he began saving bar or
event fliers, newspaper clippings, photographs and articles
reflecting gay life or issues "trying to understand myself by what
was going on around me."
McBride kept journals on his escapades. His photo collection of
clubs, bookstores and people spans four decades.
In 1984 he donated his memorabilia — more than 150 pieces — to
establish the gay archives at UNLV’s Special Collections, then later
added to it.
Yet it had never occurred to him to write a book, he said. "I was
content collecting the stuff."
After a friend suggested the book, McBride spent two years
finding and indexing articles in both the gay and straight media.
The Vegas Gay Times, which debuted in 1978, gave him "a nice
window into what was going on in the gay community all those years,"
he said. The Vegas Gay Times later became the Nevada Gay Times,
which today is the Las Vegas Bugle.
His research in the "straight press" gave him accounts of police
raids, the progression of AIDS and political issues. He searched the
New York Times and Los Angeles Times for national issues that would
affect Las Vegas.
The book
begins in 1911 — the year sodomy was made illegal in Nevada. The
years since include accounts of gay politics, gay-owned and
-operated business, bars, bathhouses, churches and organizations.
Until 1969
most gay documentation consisted of prison records of men serving
time for having sex with other men.
Breakthroughs
There were
other breakthroughs, however. A magazine advertisement for the
screening of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" was found. The movie,
based on the novel by Oscar Wilde, a gay literary icon who had been
imprisoned on sodomy charges, was shown at the Majestic Theatre of
Fremont Street in 1915.
Also uncovered was information on a group of gay enlistees in the
Civilian Conservation Corps Camp near Moapa in 1938.
During the 1930s, female impersonator Billy Richards performed at
the Green Shack, a popular Las Vegas restaurant.
"Evidently he was well known at the time," McBride said. "He came
out of New Orleans to Las Vegas. Then he disappeared.
"Then there was a drag act that performed at the Roadhouse on
Boulder Highway in the 1940s," McBride said.
During World War II, a gay bar called the Kit Kat Club at the
intersection of Fremont Street and Charleston Boulevard ran ads in
local newspapers, he said.
"If there was anything before that, I haven’t been able to find
it," he said.
Accounts of gay life in the following decades were easier to find
as the gay community emerged.
In the 1950s and ‘60s, Maxine Perron ran a gay bar during the
time gays were being weeded out of public office and employment —
along with the communists.
"And there was Maxine, running Max and Mary’s, which was a safe
haven for many people," he said. The bar stayed open throughout the
1970s.
Not only were gay clubs safe havens, many were the origin of what
would evolve into a more cohesive and active community.
Politics
"As it happens, the political consciousness of the gay community
happened in a bar," McBride said. Marge Jacques, a lesbian who came
to Southern Nevada in the 1950s, opened Le Cafe in 1970 on Paradise
Road and Tropicana Avenue. Jacques and her bartenders became
delegates to the state Democratic convention in Northern Nevada to
fight any anti-gay platform planks.
The bar’s Gay Notes from Le Cafe, a "bar rag" that provided
gossip and news, was the first gay publication in Las Vegas, McBride
said. Jacques, who lives in Florida, was part of McBride’s oral
history project.
"Oral
histories are best for the story behind the story," he said. "You
have their very detailed personal accounts. The repeal of sodomy was
in the papers, but what actually happened with the people behind
that?
"There’s a tremendous amount of fabulous history that these
people are walking around with that will be recorded that scholars
and historians can use to research in the future."
Former state Sen. Lori Lipman Brown was also interviewed. She
wrote the legislation to repeal the sodomy law, supported gay
civil-rights issues and debated Richard Ziser, head of the Coalition
for the Protection of Marriage.
Support over the years from other politicians — former Las Vegas
Mayor Jan Laverty Jones and former Gov. Bob Miller — will be
included. So will political rallies and historic moments such as the
first mass wedding on the steps of the Foley Federal Building in
1998 and the opening of the Gay and Lesbian Community Center in
1993.
Religious interaction
Conflicts and alliances with religious groups — gay churches and
support groups, as well as therapy groups meant to reverse
homosexual behavior — will have a chapter in the book.
McBride
planned to end the book with the repeal of the sodomy law in 1993.
But the recent petition drive to include a ban on gay marriage in
Nevada’s Constitution, which has qualified for the November ballot,
has led McBride to delay the book’s publication to include
present-day politics.
"This is where it gets very personal and very difficult for me,"
he said. "I’m 45 and telling people in my hometown, ‘Don’t take my
civil rights away.’ It’s pretty humiliating.
"And yes, I will have a sex chapter," McBride said. "That’s part
of the community. You can’t talk about AIDS without talking about
sex."
"In the 1980s, with AIDS, the Las Vegas gay community fell
apart," he said. "It wasn’t until the early ‘90s that it exploded.
"But even today, what I find is that there is not a single cohesive
gay community in Las Vegas, because Las Vegas itself is not a
cohesive community.
With a few exceptions the fragmented society has been low key,
McBride said.
Once his book is finished, those voices that have been there
during the community’s struggles and victories will be a part of
history, Las Vegas Bugle Publisher Rob Schlegel said. Installments
have run in the Bugle.
"It (the book) is an incredibly important piece of work,"
Schlegel said. "It shows what’s happened before and that we’re not
alone. It’s kind of like your family tree in a roundabout way."
