Bars, Restaurants, & Taverns
OLD GLORY TAVERN
Per article in The Oregonian January 30, 1937, page 22
118 S.W. Madison
1937 - ?
Gay: 1962-1964. Some called it The Glory Hole
It appears that Old Glory was operating back in 1937 [ per Oregonian article about OLCC licensing, probably not as a homosexual restaurant, but this shows that the restaurant operated before what is thought to be 1950. Per GLAPN website: [some cite that the bar was open in the 1950’s and stayed open until 1967]
Operated by Roy and Imogene Cope. It was only one of eight taverns in the 1964 license controversy between Mayor Terry Schrunk, Portland City Council and the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. Eight bars were cited per police reports that alleged it was a hangout for homosexuals, prostitutes, pimps and “person believed to be engaged in narcotics traffic, drunk rolling, muggings and other crimes”. Out of the eight, Old Glory Tavern was the only one to receive a favorable recommendation from the Portland City Council due to a tie-breaking vote by Mayor Schrunk of 3 to 2. (Oregonian, Dec. 4, 1964, p. 21).
Per the GLAPN - A Walking Tour of Downtown Portland: A Century of Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Historic Sites June 1999:L (1962-64) One of the eight taverns in the 1964 license controversy, but the only one to receive a favorable n the Portland City Council on a tie-breaking vote by Mayor Schrunk.
Per Northwest Gay Review June 1977 Page 4, “Transfusion Inn. The beer joint rested on roots of the Hawthorne Bridge—its west side. Entrance was from a side street, down a ramp, almost to water level. Its fixtures had been accumulated from a vehicular graveyard.) A variety of unanchored car seats provided the only restful element the tavern. where the dust-encrusted upholstery went, no one remembers; nor do they remember the inns permanency. across the street was The Old Glory—or glory hole. Up the street was a restaurant—Mother Featherstone’s a finishing school for frustrated faggots.”
Cited in Gay Bars, Vice, and Reform in Portland, 1948-1965 Beka Smith, Portland State University “This illustrated councilors' definition of gay bars as undesirable but not essentially threatening the city. For example, the city council had no questions for Johnnie Honegger, owner of the Harbor Club, in 1952 and voted unanimously in favor of his liquor license renewal. The council's unanimous approval of the renewal requests of Olga Polechrones and Roy Cope also demonstrated the return of council inattention to gay bars. Polechrones' Model Inn and Cope's Old Glory were later targeted as "homosexual hangouts" in the 1964-65 city crackdown.”
[continuing] Portland's gay bars clustered in low-income and high-crime areas in the central city. City officials claimed that gay bars and high crime areas drained city resources and discouraged more lucrative business investments and visitors to downtown?25 The concentration of gay bars in high crime, central city areas was common in cities throughout the U.S., because social disapproval discouraged high profile locations. 326 This also encouraged bars with both prostitute and queer customers, such as Portland's Old Glory Restaurant. Further on: The Old Glory was as well known for prostitutes as for queer customers.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3978&context=open_access_etds
Some of the gay bars, such as the Model Inn and Old Glory, were later closed or relocated for urban renewal.
Per papers called Chronology of Portland’s Gay Bars – author unknown, “Old Glory Tavern, 118 SW Madison, 1950s to 1967; Roy & Imogene Cope; became less gay after 1964, only bar of the ‘notorious eight to get city council okay in 1964; moved because of urban renewal.]
