Bars, Restaurants, & Taverns

DEREK’S TAVERN

Tel & Tel 1957-1963
Derek’s 1963-1965
The Annex 1965-1971
The Apartment - 1971
Family Zoo 1971-1986
Zoo Club 1986-1987

820 SW Oak
Years: 1963 - 1965

Per article in the newspaper Northwest Gay Review, June 1977 written by W Holman “A Gay History – lest it be forgotten” sheds may stories on many taverns including Tel & Tel and Derek’s. [page 4] The Tavern and Harbor (Inn), as well as the Tel & Tel was home for the group, a protectorate. Stragglers and the unemployed or unencumbered gathered in the afternoon. By the time downtown businesses and offices closed, the Day Nurseries were busy. [further in the article] Saunders’ Tel & Tel, still within spitting range of the Police Station, was closed periodically for frivols and various infractions. Eventually, the city refused license to dispense a bag of popcorn or a glass of soda water; the OLCC refused to enter the battle and issued liquor dispensering licenses. A customer had no choice but to drink only intoxicating fluids, nor could he quelch a hunger pang – in a business not legally doing business. [page 7 of the Special Issue it states and that date seems to be off from when Derek owned the bar as it says this was for the show The Days of Wine and Roses which was 1969 ] “The Pruitts boiled another batch of frothy mirth in the sunken ballroom of the Masonic Temple. “Wine and Roses” brought a problem. Derek, who had acquired the Tel & Tel and affectionally named it “Derek’s”, failed to produce the promised wine. Reasons were shady, but the aged grape squeezing’s did not materialize.”

Per the book The Queerest Places [A guide to Gay and Lesbian Historic sites] by Paula Martinac 1997 – cites the following, “For help in compiling the Portland listings, many thanks to Tom Cook, president of the Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest. For more sites associated with gay Portland, see “From Silence to Celebration! A guide to Portland’s Historic Gay Sites,” a publication of GLAPN.

Don Horn reached out to Tom Cook, and he states that the name of the document was changed to the GLAPN A Walking Tour of Downtown Portland: A Century of Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Historic Sites June 1999. Per Sister Paula’s book, The Trans-Vangilist she writes, “This building was a gay bar from at last 1957 until the mid-1980s, when it became a social service agency. Derek Akerson, its owner during the 1960s, claims that it as serving a gay clientele as far back as World War II, since it was the closest bar to a bus stop used by GI’s on leave. The Portland police tried unsuccessfully to close Derek’s in 1964, but the bar’s attorney argued that to do so would violate the constitutional rights of homosexuals to gather in public. Renamed the Family Zoo in the 1970s, the bar was featured in Edmund White’s famous account of his travels through gay America, States of Desire.

Northwest Gay Review June 1977

In February 1963, it opened under the ownership of Derek Akerson and was renamed Derek’s Tavern, under which name it continued until January 1965. According to Kerson, the bar had already an established gay reputation of considerable years when he purchased the place. According to legend he heard, the corner of Oak and Park was a drop-off site for buses carrying G.I.s up and down the West Coast. Because so many military servicemen were dumped on that corner, the bar became the first watering hole where men (thirsty and horny) would stop. Thus, the location evolved its own cruisy history and, even years after the war had ended, gay men continued frequenting the location.

The vice reports of 1964 noted that Derek’s Tavern was “frequented by homosexuals of higher class and means” and Akerson remembers that Johnny Mathis and ballet dancer Rudolph Nureyev used to frequent the bar when doing gigs in the city. Although it was almost entirely male in patronage, he also remembers a small group of “professional” lesbians who enjoyed having lunch at the bar in the ’60s.

It was Derek’s attorney Jim Damis who defended the constitutional right of homosexuals to gather in a public place. At this time, all gay taverns were automatically considered a “disorderly premise.” Damis was one of eight attorneys who appeared before Portland City Council in November and December 1964 to plea for their liquor licenses, but it was Damis alone who argued that the U.S. Constitution provided that right. Years later Damis, who is still at this writing a practicing attorney, spearheaded an effort by his colleagues in the Multnomah County Bar Association to sign a letter condemning the Measure Nine Initiative of 1992.

See Linnton Trolley, Tel & Tel, The Annex, The Family Zoo, The Zoo Club

citations & references:

  • Listed in Around The World with Kenneth Marlowe Magazine 1965 as The Annex Stereo Room and Derek’s Tavern

  • Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1966 [note The Annex was listed in 1965!] under Bars/Clubs with notation * - Very Popular

  • Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1968 under Bars/Clubs with notation * - Very Popular

  • Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1969 under Bars/Clubs with notation * - Very Popular, YC – Young/Collegiate

  • Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1970 under Bars/Clubs with notation * - Very Popular, YC – Young/Collegiate

  • NOTE: In the October 1971 issue of The Fountain, page 26 under Homophile News Fronts it states: DATELINE: Portland After a lengthy battle with Portland’s City Hall, Derick’s, probably the oldest gay tavern in the city, was granted a city license. The bar had changed owners recently and the city tried to close it down. [ See below]

  • Listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1971 under Bars/Clubs with notation * - Very Popular, YC – Young/Collegiate, HIP – Heads Frequent (marijuana)

  • Not listed in Damron Address Book/Address Guide 1972 – see The Annex