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(New page: Le Café [1970-78]and Disco Le Café [1983-84] Le Café opened originally as the Club Black Magic on August 18, 1954 at 4817 Paradise Road on the southwest corner of Tropicana Avenue, the...)
 
 
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Le Café [1970-78]and Disco Le Café [1983-84]
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== About the Las Vegas, Nevada Outhistory Project ==
  
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Le Café opened originally as the Club Black Magic on August 18, 1954 at 4817 Paradise Road on the southwest corner of Tropicana Avenue, then known as Bond Road. The Black Magic was the most popular jazz club in Las Vegas throughout the 1950s and '60s. When musicians got off work on the Strip they gathered at the Black magic for all-night jam sessions. This night-stalker ambiance attracted show kids from the Strip, and people who lived on ranches in Paradise Valley rode their horses through the desert to the Black Magic and tied them to hitching posts out front.1
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(c) Dennis McBride, 2009
  
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In November 1968 Camille Castro, a stylish and flamboyant European lesbian, opened Le Bistro French restaurant in the Black Magic, known by then as the Club de Paris. Camille had owned La Manche a Gigot restaurant on the Isle St. Louis in Paris among whose famous clientele were two well-known Las Vegans: Dunes Hotel owner Major Riddle and Line Renaud, star of the Dunes' Casino de Paris production. Camille was also associated with a celebrated Parisian lesbian bar called the Crazy Horse and she came to Las Vegas from Paris as the lighting engineer when Caesars Palace imported a show called the Crazy Horse Revue. When the revue went down, Camille, bankrolled by Riddle, stayed on to open her restaurant.2
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=== Gay History in Nevada and Las Vegas ===
  
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Club de Paris and Le Bistro held their grand opening on January 10, 1969 and quickly became a favorite hangout for Las Vegas' gay community, particularly the show crowd from the Strip. Betty Grable, a Las Vegas resident at the time, often hosted parties at Le Bistro, and the cast of Boys in the Band, performing at Caesars Palace during the summer of 1969, gathered at Le Bistro. Las Vegas food critic Fedora Bontempi frequently reviewed le Bistro in her column in Panorama magazine noting that it was the first and the only authentic French restaurant in Las Vegas.3
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On October 30, 1861, the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Nevada passed a law which read, "The infamous crime against nature, either with man or beast, shall subject the offender to be punished by imprisonment in the Territorial prison for a term not less than five years, and which may extend to life." For more than a hundred years what became known as Nevada Revised Statute 201.190—Nevada's sodomy law—was used to terrify, blackmail, and persecute gay people. As a result, the queer history of Nevada until the last half of the 20th century is a history of unjust criminal prosecution.
  
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By late 1969 both Le Bistro and the Club de Paris were failing when Marge Jacques became interested in running the bar. Marge had worked as a cocktail waitress at the Sands Hotel and was at the Golden Nugget during the late 1960s when Las Vegas was forced to integrate the casino industry first by hiring black dealers, then by hiring women dealers and she had been in the forefront of both fights. Marge obtained a liquor license, bought the Club de Paris, changed the name to Le Café, and held a grand opening on January 16, 1970. Marge's club was unique because she opened it publicly as a gay bar, which had never been done in Las Vegas before. Both Maxine's and the Red Barn, two other gay bars operating at the time, were low-key and closeted—but Le Café was gay out loud. The club's motto, printed on matchbooks and t-shirts, was "Glitter and Be Gay at Le Café!" a motto which perfectly reflected 1970s gay disco glamour. The club's reputation spread around the world and throughout the 1970s Le Café was frequented by such entertainers as Liberace, Joan Rivers, Shirley Maclaine, Rip Taylor and Paul Lynde, Bobbie Gentry, Debbie Reynolds, Sammy Davis, Jr.—even Milton Burl.4
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Institutionalized repression isolated Nevada’s queer population from the rest of the country where there were stirrings of community through such organizations as the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, and through such shared events as the Stonewall Riots in June 1969.
  
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It was through Marge Jacques and Le Café that the Las Vegas gay community first found its voice. Gay Notes from Le Café was the first gay publication in Las Vegas. Openly gay herself, Marge appeared on a local NBC television news show in 1976, taped in the living room of her own house, and she was the contact for a two-part Las Vegas Review-Journal series on gays in Las Vegas in 1977. It was Marge and friends and employees from Le Café who founded the first Las Vegas chapter of the National Organization for Women in 1971 and who wrested control of the Clark County Democratic Party from the Mormon Church in the mid-1970s. Marge was in demand as a lecturer on gays and gay life and addressed groups at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Nellis Air Force Base.5
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Stonewall, however, was ignored by Nevada’s media. Gay life in the Silver State was restricted to bars, tea rooms, and private parties. Police at both ends of the state routinely conducted sting operations to entrap gay people, while the legislature tweaked NRS 201.190 to broaden its reach and deepen its punishment. In addition, political repression with religious roots--principally from the state’s Mormons--at all levels of government in the state kept Nevada’s gay people fearful and closeted. The concept of community was alien.
  
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But the good times ended on August 24, 1978 when Le Café was torched. It was never determined beyond doubt who burned Marge's club, although rumor in the gay community had it that she was burned out by the owner of a bar down the street at 4310 Paradise Road called Prelude. That owner was Camille Castro, who had sold Le Bistro to Marge, left the country, then returned in 1975 to open a new bar and disco in direct competition with Le Café. There were rumors, too, that Marge had burned her own club, although at the time of the fire she had failed to update her insurance and lost everything. A second fire on May 5, 1979 completely gutted the empty building.6
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There were activists in the state, however, who were unafraid to work openly. In Northern Nevada, Phil Ragsdale, who was Emperor I of the Silver Dollar Court, conceived of the Reno Gay Rodeo in 1975 as a fundraiser for the organization. The rodeo raised the profile of the state’s gay people and went far toward establishing community and national recognition.
  
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For the next five years Marge operated a number of other gay bars in Las Vegas including the Other Place at 5410 Paradise Road and the Village Station, which became the Gipsy in 1981.7
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In Southern Nevada, lesbian Marge Jacques, who owned Le Café in Las Vegas in the 1970s, spoke publicly in behalf of her community. She provided a defacto community center in her bar—until it was torched in 1978. By then, however, Marge’s first efforts toward building community inspired others to be open and proactive. As Nevada’s population boomed in the 1980s and ‘90s, gay people from throughout the country brought their ideas and energy to establish organizations, clubs, and events.
  
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When Marge lost the Gipsy in 1983, she resurrected Le Café as Disco Le Café Bar and Restaurant in the old Country Rebel Steakhouse at 2710 E. Desert Inn Road. Her partners in this venture were noted casino designer Don Schmitt, entertainer Breck Wall, and businessman Warren Fulbright. Disco Le Café had its grand opening on October 20, 1983. The nightclub came alive at night with drag, Punk, and New Wave shows, while the restaurant side hosted meetings of groups and organizations both straight and gay. The rooms were decorated with paintings by performer/designer Joey Skilbred, while a huge fireplace kept the foyer and restaurant warm. The menu featured dishes named after famous gay people such as James Dean Hot Cakes and the Bessie Smith Platter. For awhile some of the glamour that had made the first Le Café world famous was reborn at Disco Le Café.8
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While Nevada’s queer community was late to develop, its rise was rapid, so that by 1993 it had the political clout necessary to have the state’s notorious sodomy law repealed. By 2009, the community had obtained a variety of equal protections in state law, including employment nondiscrimination, health decisions and hospital visitation, and domestic partnership.
  
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But Disco Le Café died a quick death. Its East Desert Inn location worked against it because it was too remote from the Paradise Road/Naples area known as the Fruit Loop; Marge was aiming for a high-end clientele that didn't exist in Las Vegas then; and the bar owners in the Fruit Loop, angry with Marge's competition, spread rumors that the cops were following gay people from the Fruit Loop on their way to Disco Le Café and ticketing them on trumped-up DUIs. It was an effective lie which, taken with the other factors working against Marge, killed the bar. On April 13, 1984, the Women's Concerns Group of Nevadans for Human Rights arrived at Le Café for their monthly meeting only to find the doors locked.9
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Despite recent gains, however important and hard-won, Nevada’s queer community still has a long way to go before it reaches the constitutional promise of full equality. Nevertheless, the community’s growth in Nevada, together with its increasing social and political capital, has been a remarkable and encouraging evolution.
  
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Le Café, closed the day before, had passed into history.
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=== Contributors ===
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'''Dennis McBride''', Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas
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'''Crystal Van Dee''', Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas
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'''Paul Ershler''', Lambda Business and Professional Association
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== List of Articles ==
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Below is a list of the articles we have submitted to the Since Stonewall Out History Project.
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* [[Nevada]] Timeline: A timeline of events since the Stonewall Riots, '''1969 - 2009'''
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* [[Las Vegas, Nevada OutHistory Image Gallery]]: A collection of all of the images used throughout our articles.
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*[[Kenny Kerr]]: Entertainer Kenny Kerr shares memories of the '''1969''' Stonewall Riots.
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* [[Le Café]] : Established in '''1970''', Le Café was the base of operations for the emerging gay community in southern Nevada.
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*[[Metropolitan Community Church]]: An article from March <b>1974</b> in the ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' notes that Rev. Clonnie Lambert is pastor of a Las Vegas chapter of the [[Metropolitan Community Church]](MCC).
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*[[ACLU-Las Vegas]]: In '''1975''', The American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] opened an office in Las Vegas with a $5,000 grant from the national office. ACLU involvement in Las Vegas eventually led to the gay community's first newspaper.
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*[[Reno Gay Rodeo (RGR)]]: This rodeo, which officially began in '''1977''', raised the profile of the state’s gay people and went far toward establishing community and national recognition.
 +
 
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*[[Boylesque]]: Female impersonation in Las Vegas, with a focus on ''Boylesque'', which began its long run in '''1977'''.
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*[[Nevadans for Human Rights]]: Founded in '''1978''', [[Nevadans for Human Rights]] was the first gay rights organization in Las Vegas.
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*[[Gay Academic Union]]: Closely associated with [[Las Vegas' first Gay Pride Celebration]], UNLV's [[Gay Academic Union]] held its first meeting at in '''1982'''.
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* [[Las Vegas' first Gay Pride Celebration]]: Las Vegas held its first Gay Pride Celebration in '''1983'''.
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*[[AIDS in Southern Nevada]]: In <b>1983</b>, A 32-year-old man, resident in Las Vegas for just six months, was Southern Nevada's first AIDS death.
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* [[Stonewall Park]]: In <b>1984</b>, Reno gay activist Fred Schoonmaker and his husband, Alfred Parkinson, initiated a series of efforts to establish a gay town in Nevada known as [[Stonewall Park]].
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*[[Women United of Nevada]]: Founded in '''1987''', [[Women United of Nevada]] [WUN], was the first separately founded, lesbian-identified organization in Las Vegas.
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*[[Bright Pink Literature (Get Booked)]]: Bright Pink Literature (later becoming Get Booked), opened in '''1987'''. While more famous bookstores across the country, such as A Different Light and the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, have closed as LGBT literature has gone “mainstream,” [[Bright Pink Literature (Get Booked)]] has survived for more than 20 years.
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*[[Community Counseling Center]]: In '''1990''' the [[Community Counseling Center]] opened at 1006-1008 East Sahara Avenue. Within a short time Community Counseling becomes one of the gay community's greatest resources.
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* [[Senate Bill 466]]: Until the '''1993''' passage of Senate Bill 466, the history of Gay people in Nevada was largely one of criminal prosecution.
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*[[Center Stage, Inc.]]: Nevada’s first queer theatre troupe was [[Center Stage, Inc.]], founded in '''1999'''.
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* [[Question 2]]: The fight for equal rights suffered a severe blow with the '''2002''' amendment to the Nevada constitution that denied same-sex partners the right to marry.
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*[[Las Vegas Transgender]]: Transgender people have long been part of Las Vegas history, even though they have usually been left out of the social and political development of the gay community, and have been far slower in establishing a community of their own. But by '''2009''', Las Vegas held its first annual Transgender Health Fair and participated in the National Transgender Day of Remembrance.
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*[[SB 283]]: Despite a veto by Governor Jim Gibbons, [[SB 283]], Nevada's Domestic Partnership Act, was passed in '''2009'''.
 +
 
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=== Eyewitness Accounts ===
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We have also added several eyewitness/firsthand accounts (indicated by this icon: [[Image:eyewitness.jpg]]. The eyewitness accounts are located throughout the above articles, but are also available here:
 +
 
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*[[1977 eyewitness account of Le Café]]
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*[[Judy Corbisiero's recollections of women's music in the 1970s]]
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*[[Eyewitness accounts of Gay Pride in Las Vegas]]
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*[[1991 eyewitness account of Boylesque]]
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*[[Dennis McBride's account of being fired]] from the ''Nevada Gay Times''
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*[[1998 eyewitness account of a mass wedding in Las Vegas]]
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*[[an eyewitness account of the 2000 MCC chapel dedication]]
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*[[June 2000 reaction to the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage]]
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*[[August 2000 Equal Rights Nevada fundraiser]]
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*[[Equal Rights Nevada's first press conference in the fall of 2000]]
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*[[October 2000 journal entry about stealing signs posted by CPM]]
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*[[reaction to the 2002 amendment to the Nevada Constitution]]

Latest revision as of 14:04, 26 March 2010

About the Las Vegas, Nevada Outhistory Project

(c) Dennis McBride, 2009

Gay History in Nevada and Las Vegas

On October 30, 1861, the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Nevada passed a law which read, "The infamous crime against nature, either with man or beast, shall subject the offender to be punished by imprisonment in the Territorial prison for a term not less than five years, and which may extend to life." For more than a hundred years what became known as Nevada Revised Statute 201.190—Nevada's sodomy law—was used to terrify, blackmail, and persecute gay people. As a result, the queer history of Nevada until the last half of the 20th century is a history of unjust criminal prosecution.

Institutionalized repression isolated Nevada’s queer population from the rest of the country where there were stirrings of community through such organizations as the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, and through such shared events as the Stonewall Riots in June 1969.

Stonewall, however, was ignored by Nevada’s media. Gay life in the Silver State was restricted to bars, tea rooms, and private parties. Police at both ends of the state routinely conducted sting operations to entrap gay people, while the legislature tweaked NRS 201.190 to broaden its reach and deepen its punishment. In addition, political repression with religious roots--principally from the state’s Mormons--at all levels of government in the state kept Nevada’s gay people fearful and closeted. The concept of community was alien.

There were activists in the state, however, who were unafraid to work openly. In Northern Nevada, Phil Ragsdale, who was Emperor I of the Silver Dollar Court, conceived of the Reno Gay Rodeo in 1975 as a fundraiser for the organization. The rodeo raised the profile of the state’s gay people and went far toward establishing community and national recognition.

In Southern Nevada, lesbian Marge Jacques, who owned Le Café in Las Vegas in the 1970s, spoke publicly in behalf of her community. She provided a defacto community center in her bar—until it was torched in 1978. By then, however, Marge’s first efforts toward building community inspired others to be open and proactive. As Nevada’s population boomed in the 1980s and ‘90s, gay people from throughout the country brought their ideas and energy to establish organizations, clubs, and events.

While Nevada’s queer community was late to develop, its rise was rapid, so that by 1993 it had the political clout necessary to have the state’s notorious sodomy law repealed. By 2009, the community had obtained a variety of equal protections in state law, including employment nondiscrimination, health decisions and hospital visitation, and domestic partnership.

Despite recent gains, however important and hard-won, Nevada’s queer community still has a long way to go before it reaches the constitutional promise of full equality. Nevertheless, the community’s growth in Nevada, together with its increasing social and political capital, has been a remarkable and encouraging evolution.


Contributors

Dennis McBride, Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas

Crystal Van Dee, Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas

Paul Ershler, Lambda Business and Professional Association

List of Articles

Below is a list of the articles we have submitted to the Since Stonewall Out History Project.

  • Nevada Timeline: A timeline of events since the Stonewall Riots, 1969 - 2009
  • Kenny Kerr: Entertainer Kenny Kerr shares memories of the 1969 Stonewall Riots.
  • Le Café : Established in 1970, Le Café was the base of operations for the emerging gay community in southern Nevada.
  • ACLU-Las Vegas: In 1975, The American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] opened an office in Las Vegas with a $5,000 grant from the national office. ACLU involvement in Las Vegas eventually led to the gay community's first newspaper.
  • Reno Gay Rodeo (RGR): This rodeo, which officially began in 1977, raised the profile of the state’s gay people and went far toward establishing community and national recognition.
  • Boylesque: Female impersonation in Las Vegas, with a focus on Boylesque, which began its long run in 1977.
  • AIDS in Southern Nevada: In 1983, A 32-year-old man, resident in Las Vegas for just six months, was Southern Nevada's first AIDS death.
  • Stonewall Park: In 1984, Reno gay activist Fred Schoonmaker and his husband, Alfred Parkinson, initiated a series of efforts to establish a gay town in Nevada known as Stonewall Park.
  • Senate Bill 466: Until the 1993 passage of Senate Bill 466, the history of Gay people in Nevada was largely one of criminal prosecution.
  • Question 2: The fight for equal rights suffered a severe blow with the 2002 amendment to the Nevada constitution that denied same-sex partners the right to marry.
  • Las Vegas Transgender: Transgender people have long been part of Las Vegas history, even though they have usually been left out of the social and political development of the gay community, and have been far slower in establishing a community of their own. But by 2009, Las Vegas held its first annual Transgender Health Fair and participated in the National Transgender Day of Remembrance.
  • SB 283: Despite a veto by Governor Jim Gibbons, SB 283, Nevada's Domestic Partnership Act, was passed in 2009.

Eyewitness Accounts

We have also added several eyewitness/firsthand accounts (indicated by this icon: Eyewitness.jpg. The eyewitness accounts are located throughout the above articles, but are also available here:

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