Land of 10,000 Loves

"Stuart Van Cleve has gone into the musty archives and brought them to vivid life. His comprehensive and entertaining overview of queer Minnesota history is a total page-turner. This feat is all the more impressive given that he’s writing about people who, for a long time, were trying hard to keep their lives hidden. This important work of regional history is also a kind of family history—documenting our recent past with equal parts painstaking accuracy and unabashed love." —Alison Bechdel, creator of the comic strip DTWOF and former Dyke Heights resident

For too long, LGBTQ communities—including Minnesota’s—have been maligned, misrepresented, and often outright ignored. Myths regarding the queer experience have grown and become embedded in local and national consciousness. The absence of queer stories over time in local historical and popular writing only served to further this ignorance, but great strides have been made in recent decades to celebrate Minnesota’s vibrant queer history. Add to this rising chorus an enchanting new voice: Land of 10,000 Loves, Stewart Van Cleve’s wide-ranging and unprecedented illustrated history of queer life in Minnesota.

Drawing from the renowned Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota—a vast collection of books, photographs, films, and other historical artifacts that Van Cleve calls “one of the most comprehensive accounts of international queer history in the world”—Land of 10,000 Loves blends oral history, archival narrative, newspaper accounts, and fascinating illustrations to paint a remarkable picture of Minnesota’s queer history. More than 120 concise historical essays lead readers from the earliest evidences of queer life in Minnesota before the Second World War—for example, Oscar Wilde’s visit to Minnesota and “rumors” at the Alexander Ramsey house—to riverfront vice districts, protest and parade sites, bars, 1970s collectives, institutions, public spaces, and private homes. More than 130 illustrations illuminate these histories with images of pride guides, archival photographs, and advertisements from local queer bars among other extraordinary pieces of ephemera and artifacts. Many of the stories and images are well known, while others have been all but forgotten, until now.

Building on foundational works of regional queer history such as The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s and Queer Twin Cities, the historical vignettes of Land of 10,000 Loves show us that Minnesota—from its biggest cities to its smallest towns—has been, as Van Cleve notes, “queer, to a certain extent, since the very beginning.” Land of 10,000 Loves honors this rich and diverse legacy and is a compelling testament to the sacrifices, scandals, and victories that have affected and continue to affect the lives of queer Minnesotans.

Stewart Van Cleve worked as a curatorial assistant at the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies at the University of Minnesota. He is currently a graduate student at the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. What Is Queer Here? Looking for Experiences in Early Minnesota

Ozawwendib of Leech Lake

Lucy “La Roi” Lobdell

Was Alexander Ramsey Queer?

Oscar Wilde’s Visit

The Death of William Williams

The Emporium and Golden Rule Department Stores

Goodtime Parties on Rondo Avenue

Josephine Baker at the Metropolitan Theater

Drag at the Nicollet Hotel

Gertrude Stein visits the Women’s City Club

Clement Haupers

Fort Snelling

2. How We Kept Warm: Queer Life in the Vice Districts of the Twin Cities

Rice Park

The James Montague Murder

The Coney Island

The Hennepin Avenue Baths

Union Bus Depot

The Garrick Theater

Kirmser’s Bar

The Dugout

The Onyx Bar

The Bremer Arcade

The Gay Nineties Complex

Directory Services, Incorporated

The Hotel Andrews

The Brass Rail

3. Act Up Here: A Legacy of Activism

Jack Baker and Michael McConnell’s Marriage License

Allan Spear

The Lesbian Feminist Organizing Committee

The Minnesota Committee for Gay and Lesbian Rights

Lutherans Concerned

Dignity Twin Cities

St. Paul’s Equal Rights Ordinance

The GLC Voice

The Guardianship of Sharon Kowalski

Brian Coyle

The Minnesota Family Council

Gay Community Services, the G.L.C.A.C., and OutFront Minnesota

ACT-UP Demonstrates in Mora

The Bisexual Organizing Project

Paul Koering Votes against Gay Marriage

The Two-Spirit Press Room

Twin Cities Trans March

4. Erotic Cities: Urban Sexuality Explored

The Nineteen Bar

Honey Harold’s Many Ventures

Sutton’s

Queer Warehouse Parties

Foxy’s

The Rossmoor Building

The Town House

The Sandbox/Club Cabaret

The Noble Roman

The Saloon

The Locker Room

Bare-Ass Beach

The Adonis Theater

The Main Club

The Minneapolis Eagle

Margarita Bella

Pi Bar

The Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport

5. Come Outside: Queer People Out in the Open

A Death in Loring Park

Twin Cities Pride

The State Fair

Rising Moon and the Pioneer Farm

Twin Cites Goodtime Softball League

The 1986 Winter Gay Games

Twin Ports Pride

The AIDS Trek

The North Star Gay Rodeo

Outwoods

North Country Bears/Minnesota Bears

The Queer Street Patrol

Capital City Pride

The 1997 Two Spirit Gathering

Twin Cities Black Pride

Pine City Pride

The 2008 Two-Spirit Gathering

6. The Lavender Tower: Institutions of Art and Education

The Transsexual Research Project

Fight Repression of Erotic Expression

The Amazon Feminist Bookstore

The Club

The Northfield Gay Liberation Front

At the Foot of the Mountain Theater

Jim Chalgren

A Brother’s Touch Books

Patrick’s Cabaret

The Quatrefoil Library

Philanthrofund

District 202

Angels in America at the World Theater

The Anoka–Hennepin School District

UMD GLBT Services

People Representing the Sexual Minority (PRiSM)

Straights and Gays for Equality (SAGE)

The Transgender Commission

7. Building Community: Life beyond the Gay Ghetto

Gay House

The Lesbian Resource Center

Christopher Street

A Woman’s Coffeehouse

Dyke Heights

All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church

Equal Time

The Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP)

Out to Brunch

The Aurora Lesbian Center and the Northland Gay Men’s Center

The NAMES Project Memorial Quilt

The Basket and the Bow

Gay and Lesbian Elders Active in Minnesota (GLEAM)

Th