 | |
| Address | Houston, Texas |
|---|---|
| Type | Gay bar |
| Opened | 1978 |
| Closed | 2016 |
Montrose Mining Company was a gay bar in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston, Texas, United States. Having opened in March 1978, it was the oldest gay bar in Houston since the closing of EJ's in June 2014. Although it mainly catered to the leather and Levi's subcultures, it was regularly attended by all members of the LGBT community.
Montrose Mining Company is located in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston, Texas. Montrose Mining Company was voted Best Gay Bar by the Houston Press in 2009.* [1] It was also voted one of the 200 best gay bars in the world by Out Traveler in 2015. [2] [3]
Before establishment of the Montrose Mining Company, several earlier bars had existed on the spot at 805 Pacific Street in Montrose. The first recorded there was The Tattooed Lady, which opened around 1970 and closed by December 1974. By that time, a new gay and drag bar, Pacific Street Station, had been established and was attracting patrons with big-name performances, such as Eartha Kitt. [4] It is unknown when Pacific Street Station closed, but in January 1977, a new cruise bar by the name of Uncle Charlie's replaced it. Uncle Charlie's closed in March 1978. [4]
In 2016 Charles Armstrong, the owner, announced it was closing, arguing the concept was out of date. [5]
It is now used as Postino Wine Cafe Montrose, a restaurant. [6]
Montrose is a neighborhood located in west-central Houston, Texas, United States. Montrose is a 7.5-square-mile (19 km2) area roughly bounded by Interstate 69/U.S. Highway 59 to the south, Allen Parkway to the north, South Shepherd Drive to the west, and Taft to Fairview to Bagby to Highway 59 to Main to the east. The area is also referred to as Neartown or Neartown / Montrose.
Paul Broussard (1964–1991), a 27-year-old Houston-area banker and Texas A&M alumnus, died after a gay bashing incident outside a Houston nightclub in the early hours of July 4, 1991. Nine teenaged youths, ages 15–17, and one 22-year-old were intoxicated on drugs and alcohol when they left a high school party in the suburb of The Woodlands and headed for Houston's heavily gay Montrose area in an attempt to gain admittance to dance clubs located in the vicinity.
South Beach is a nightclub with after hours located in Houston, Texas within the Neartown area which opened in 2001 on the former site of Club Heaven. The 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) dance club located at 810 Pacific Street was popular among the city's gay community. Among South Beach’s many features was a full-color water-cooled matrix laser light show utilizing Kryogen Ifex liquid ice jets that spray out a thick cloud of liquid Ice. The ice jets had the ability to reduce the temperature of the club by 20 °F (−7 °C) in a few seconds.
The Houston Gay Pride Parade is the major feature of a gay pride festival held annually since 1979. The festival takes place in June to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies. This event commemorates the 1969 police raid of the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood, which is generally considered to be the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. Protests against police harassment in Houston also helped bring about the parade.
The Gulf Coast Archive and Museum of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender History, Inc. (GCAM) is an LGBT history organization located in Houston. It was previously in Neartown.
The Houston GLBT Community Center was a community center for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies in the Houston metropolitan area and southeast Texas. Its last location was in the Dow School building in the Sixth Ward of Houston.
The Houston Voice, originally known as The Montrose Star, was a bi-weekly newspaper published on alternating Wednesdays in Houston, Texas. A subsequent newspaper is now known as Montrose Star ISSN (2163-050X). The newspaper is targeted to the LGBTQ community in southeast Texas as well as Austin and San Antonio.
Mary's, originally called Mary's, Naturally and sometimes referred to as Mary's Lounge, was an iconic gay bar located in the Montrose neighborhood in Houston, Texas, in the United States. The bar opened in 1968, and by the time of its permanent closing in November 2009, it was the oldest gay bar in Houston and one of the oldest in Texas. In addition to being one of the most popular and well-known gay bars in Montrose, Mary's was a hub for gay political activism. In 2011, OutSmart said that the bar "anchored" Houston's gay community in Montrose during its nearly forty-year history.
Houston has a large and diverse LGBT population and is home to the 4th largest gay pride parade in the nation. Houston has the largest LGBT population of any city in the state of Texas.
Hyde Park is a historic community located in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston, Texas. Its southeast boundary is the intersection Montrose Boulevard and Westheimer. The neighborhood was established in the late 1800s on the summer farm of the second President of the Republic of Texas, Mirabeau Lamar. In the 1970s, Hyde Park became a central part of the Gay Rights Movement in Houston. Like much of Montrose, the neighborhood is now experiencing significant gentrification, and is home to an abundance of restaurants, including Mexican, Italian, Greek, American, Lebanese, coffee houses, and numerous bars.
Brazos River Bottom, also known as the BRB, was a gay bar located in the Midtown, Houston, Texas, United States, that opened in 1978. At the time of its closure in 2013, it was one of Houston's oldest gay bars, and the oldest still running at its original location.
The Montrose Center is an LGBTQ community center located in Houston, Texas, in the United States. The organization provides an array of programs and services for the LGBTQ community, including mental and behavioral health, anti-violence services, support groups, specialized services for youth, seniors, and those living with HIV, community meeting space, and it now operates the nation's largest LGBTQ-affirming, affordable, senior living center in the nation, the Law Harrington Senior Living Center. It is a member of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. It is in Neartown (Montrose).
OutSmart Magazine, or simply OutSmart, is a monthly publication serving Houston's LGBT community since 1994. Founded by Greg Jeu, the magazine's outreach has exceeded 200,000 and is distributed at over 350 locations in Houston and Galveston, as well as in Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso, and San Antonio. Upon its creation, it was the only local magazine to highlight the society, politics, and culture surrounding the LGBT community in Houston, rather than serving as an entertainment guide; most other publications at that time tended to feature sexually-explicit content and advertisements. OutSmart is also certified and verified by the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce as an LGBT Business Enterprise and is audited by Verified Audit Circulation.
Meteor, also known as Meteor Houston, Meteor Nightclub, or Meteor Urban Video Lounge, was a gay bar and nightclub in Neartown, Houston, Texas, in the United States. The bar hosted an annual Mr. Gay Pride Houston competition.
Eagle Houston, also known as The Eagle, is a gay bar in Montrose, Houston, Texas. It is one of many unaffiliated gay bars in dozens of different cities using the "Eagle" name, and caters to the leather and bear subcultures. It sponsors the Mr. Texas Eagle leather competition.
Austin, Texas, has one of the most prominent and active LGBT populations in the United States. Austin was acclaimed by The Advocate in 2012 as part of its Gayest Cities in America, and was recognized by Travel and Leisure as one of America's Best Cities for Gay Travel. Much of Austin's gay nightlife scene is clustered around 4th Street. LGBT activism groups Atticus Circle and Equality Texas are headquartered in Austin.
Just Marion & Lynn's, stylized "Just" Marion & Lynn's, was a gay bar that was opened in 1973 by Marion Pantzer and Lynn Hornaday in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston, Texas, United States. It was one of the first lesbian-oriented bars to open in Houston. The bar closed in 1987, one year after Pantzer was murdered.
In 1977, the Texas State Bar Association invited country singer Anita Bryant to perform at a meeting in Houston, Texas. In response to Bryant's outspoken anti-gay views and her Save Our Children campaign, thousands of members of the Houston LGBT community and their supporters marched through the city to the venue in protest on June 16, 1977. The protests have been called "Houston's Stonewall" and set into motion the major push for LGBT rights in Houston.
F Bar was a gay bar and nightclub in Midtown, Houston, in the U.S. state of Texas. The bar opened in 2011 and closed in 2017. Garth Mueller of Frommer's rated the bar 1 out of 3 stars.
JR's Bar and Grill is a gay bar in Neartown, Houston, in the U.S. state of Texas. Charles Armstrong is the owner.
