Queer PDX History

Long before rainbow flags hung in shop windows, queer Portlanders found each other in the bars, cafés, theaters and bathhouses of the old downtown waterfront, the blocks along First, Second and Third avenues that run up to Burnside and into today's Old Town. The Gay & Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest walking tour traces a gay scene in these streets back to at least 1912.

In the 1950s the Harbor Club, at SW First Avenue and Yamhill, was the city's premier lesbian and gay bar. It was also a target. In 1957 the armed forces declared it off limits. In 1964 the Portland City Council asked the Oregon Liquor Control Commission to revoke the licenses of the city's gay and lesbian bars, and the commission refused because the bars were operating within the law. City Hall kept up the pressure, and the Harbor Club closed in June 1965. Nearby, bartender "Mama" Bernice Norris became a legend and a fierce ally. She poured at Dinty Moore's, had a bar named after her, Mama Bernice's (1962–64), and later owned the Other Inn, the city's first documented leather bar.

In 1967 Walter Cole bought Demas Tavern, at 208 NW Third Avenue, in what was then called Skid Row. He ran it as a lesbian bar for a few years, and it became Darcelle XV Showplace, a few steps from where CC Slaughters stands today. As Darcelle, Cole was crowned Empress XV of the Imperial Sovereign Rose Court in 1972. In 2016 Guinness World Records recognized her as the world's oldest drag queen.

In 2020 the Showplace became the first place in Oregon listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its LGBTQ+ history. Cole died on March 23, 2023, at 92. The show goes on under new ownership, still hosted by Poison Waters, and in June 2026 the city opened Darcelle XV Plaza in the former O'Bryant Square.

Portland's modern gay rights movement is generally dated to March 1970, when the Portland Gay Liberation Front first met. Indoor pride events followed in 1971, and in the autumn of 1975 about 200 people held the city's first outdoor public pride celebration in the South Park Blocks. The Portland Town Council, a more political group, was organized the same year. In 1974 the City Council banned job discrimination based on sexual orientation for city employees, and in 1991 it passed a broader civil rights ordinance.

The backlash came at the ballot box. Oregon voters passed Measure 8 in 1988, and a court later struck it down. In 1992 they rejected Measure 9, which would have written condemnation of homosexuality into the state constitution, by about 13 points. Marriage was banned by Measure 36 in 2004, and on May 19, 2014, a federal judge struck that ban down in Geiger v. Kitzhaber. Couples married that same day.

When AIDS arrived, the bars became lifelines. Cascade AIDS Project formed in 1983. Starting in 1984, the basement of the Embers, a gay bar at 110 NW Broadway, housed Esther's Pantry, a food bank for people with HIV/AIDS. In 1987 Juniper House in Southeast Portland opened as Oregon's first residential care home for people with AIDS. CAP, now CAP Northwest, still keeps offices on NW Davis Street, just up the block from CC's.

CC Slaughters opened in 1981, the same year the Embers moved to Old Town. The Oregon Historical Society keeps the club's records from 1981 to 2008 in its Gay & Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest collections. As one writer noted, CC's opened during the HIV crisis and later had to close during another pandemic. It shut its doors in October 2020 and reopened in spring 2021.

In June 2025, owner Bruce Rice, who had run the club for 22 years, announced his retirement and an August closing. Portland pushed back. Buyers stepped forward, and on July 31, 2025 CC's announced it would stay open. New owners have kept the doors open, carrying a 40-plus-year legacy forward in the heart of Old Town.

Much of what we know about queer Portland survives thanks to the Oregon Queer History Collective, founded in 1994 as the Gay & Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest, and to the Oregon Historical Society, which houses its collections. The City of Portland's LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project has mapped more than 400 places in an online StoryMap.