Gay clubs in columbia missouri

If you visit the Arch and Column Pub, Columbia's sole LGBTQ bar, affectionately known as Arches, on the Business Loop in the early evening hours on a Wednesday, and maybe even Friday or Saturday, you are sure to see a group of guys sitting around, chatting about their week and sometimes reminiscing. These men have lived in Columbia for at least the last 30 to 40 years and have had a chance to observe the changing moods in Columbia's culture and its missouri of the LGBTQ community.

The group of regulars are somewhat the vestiges of what was known as the Rainbow Rotary. This was a group of men who would meet to have dinner on a regular basis and also hold a raffle over the course of the evening in support of a local charity. James Street. More on Columbia's LGBTQ history is available through documents at gay State Historical Society of Missourimostly relating back to University of Missouri students, faculty and staff fighting for recognition and rights.

This includes documents of Victor Estevez, an MU professor who pushed for nondiscrimination policies at columbia university and in the broader community. Estevez donated his collected documents in before his death two years later. One of the only ways years ago an LGBTQ person could find community was through the nightlife of going out to bars.

SoCo club was located near Nifong Boulevard before moving downtown to South Seventh Street in the late s to early s. MyHouse nightclub and sports bar once was SoCo Club. Three Cheers also was the name of a restaurant and bar on the Business Loop that eventually would become Arches, owned by Pitt Potter.

You played it low key," he said. Questions would later open a secondary, second-floor bar called Answers. It had a club floor like Saturday Night Fever," he said about Whispers. Other bars mentioned by Arch and Column patrons included Zazoos, Styx and Contacts, the latter of which was owned and managed from the late s to mids by Scott Miniea.

Zazoos, where its previous business name was Mike's Paradise Retreat, was a place you would see guys at the bar and gals at the pool tables, Miniea said. Miniea opened Contacts in the to timeframe when he still was a junior at MU. After a brief closure it moved from its original location on the business loop to South Ninth Street inwhere Chipotle now is located.

It would have its second and final move to Broadway, where Billiards on Broadway now is. He left the business in to start his education career, but still helped manage it some. Newman also was employed at Contacts during this time as a door man, and sometimes bar tender.

How has Columbia LGBTQ acceptance changed in 40 years? Arch and Column regulars share stories

On a Saturday night there could be people in that room. Eventually the competition was between Contacts and Styx," he said, adding that by the time Styx closed, and SoCo Club was now up and running, that Styx had welcomed some big names in drag such as Lady Chablis, Lady Bunny and well-known gay adult film performers.

The bars in Columbia were more than just a place you could get a drink, but they were community centers where you could discuss issues of the day, Miniea said. Arches still exists very much like a community center, he added. There is an identity here at Arches. With legislation impacting so many and politicians wanting us to go back into the closet, it almost seems like we are needing a second Stonewall Uprising, said bar patron Darren Lammers.

Newman and Miniea were very protective of their patrons because "the last thing we wanted was for someone to get outed or hurt," Newman said.