Note: The Model Inn and Transfusion Inn were approximately 1 block from each other on 1st Ave.

Per papers called Chronology of Portland’s Gay Bars – author unknown, “1139 SW 1st Ave – Milton Buck owner, April 1959-December 1984, gay and transient’s’ bar, torn down in Urban renewal.”

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 inn’s 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.”

Gay/Lesbian Capstone Archives Course: The Resurrection of the Transfusion Inn, Did it Exist? James S. Loos  Prof. Mussey December 4, 2000

The Transfusion Inn existed from 1959 to 1964. It occupied the corner space on SW 1st stretching between SW Main and SW Madison-a stretch that has since been obliterated by the entrance to Hawthorne Bridge and a nearby freeway on-ramp. But aş early as the forties, these same streets played host to a number of beer parlors, hotel lodging establishments, 2nd hand stores, billiard rooms, restaurants, and cafes. The 2nd hand stores – 11 or 12 within a two-block radius – indicate that the neighborhood either had a strong clientele for used items or that the rent was inexpensive for the vendors or perhaps a little of each is true... By the time the Transfusion took over in 1959, many of these places had closed down, some however merely relocated…In 1963, vacancies had expanded  -- plaguing the SW Salmon Street intersection all the way to the SW Market intersection. In 1944 there were only 3 individual vacancies between the blocks listed above. In 1959, there were around 19, and by 1963, there was at least 26 perhaps more than Transfusion joining that list in 1964…According to Sally, a local Portland area lesbian and veritable encyclopedia of Portland area pro-queer places of the past, the Transfusion was a “wild joint” -a beer and wine establishment where one could get a glass of beer for “twenty cents”.  According to Sally, dykes worked as bartenders and the clientele was a mixture “of gay men and women”, “lots of alcoholics, an occasional drug dealer, and straights. It was not uncommon for straight men to come in and hassle the queer employees or clientele – which included transvestites. On more than one occasion, Sally remembers drug dealing. “Yes, drugs were definitely sold there, mostly bennies and yellow jackets”-downers and uppers respectively.

The relative chaos of the Transfusion may have been balanced by another property queer drinking establishment just a few blocks north called The Harbor Club. Though part restaurant and part lounge, the Harbor featured an upstairs area, accessible only through a stairway obscured by a thick curtain. After mounting the stairs, one would have to pass an enclosed mezzanine, and finally into the line of people waiting to get into the secret queer bar. Sally describes the Harbor as “the Grand Daddy’ of gay bars.

Liquor licensing at that time disallowed dancing-even to jukebox music unless certain “cabaret” style licenses were purchased. The cabaret licenses-being much more expensive – excluded smaller taverns, parlors, and bars from encouraging more intimate atmospheres as well as allowing the few larger clubs to monopolize more upscale crowd – straight or gay. Whether the OLCC had any hidden agenda in its exorbitant pricing of liquor permits for dance halls remains a mystery but does indicate the amount of power and force held by the commission.

The Transfusion Tavern did in fact have women bartenders, did function as a lesbian space and was located in an area of downtown Portland known for several queer-friendly bars.

Before 1959 and the emergence of the Transfusion Inn, 1139 SW 1st had been the home of Mt Shasta/Restaurant. According to the Portland City Directory at the Oregon Historical Society, Mt. Shasta occupied 1139 from 1936 on up to 1959 [per Portland Director 1936 through 1965)  The reasons for Mt Shasta’s departure remain a mystery, the businesses of SW 1 in the forties, fifties, and sixties does give some indication as to the physical make-up of the neighborhood and does allow for some inferences to be made about the people in that time.

The Harbor was always packed - and though no dancing was allowed, the operator of the bar (a woman) would allow same-sex dancing as long as she felt that no “agents” (Oregon Liquor Control Commission investigators)  present…

OLCC had the power to shut an operation down indefinitely on reasons of “lewd conducts to sanitary conditions. Monitoring of dancing in such places was not only an act of caution by operators of certain establishments but it was also one of immediate survival…Though upscale, hidden, and relatively peaceful in comparison to the Transfusion Inn, bars such as The Harbor Club indicate that a wide variety of queer establishments existed within a geographically small place. The Transfusion – straights and gay, socially permitted drugs and illegal ones-seem to embody the meaning of transfusion – the act of passing from one to the other”. In an area and when queer still meant closeted – in places like the Transfusion Inn – Portland was emerging, rearranging and finally, transforming into something “other”.

Per the GLAPN - A Walking Tour of Downtown Portland: A Century of Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Historic Sites June 1999: This storefront once a tavern, was fingered in the 1964 Vice Reports of Chief of Police McNamara as being a lesbian hangout. The reports noted that it was frequented almost entirely by women who “dress like men, act like men, and are believed to be from areas outside Portland”.

Owner Edna Jordal who was a widow at the time of the hearings in front of the Portland City Council in December 1964. She had worked previously at the Transfusion Inn which was a notorious lesbian dive located on South Front Street almost at water level. The only employees at the Milwaukee Tavern were women-one who was identified in the records as “Miss Lewis” who was the manager and had “served eight years in the service with an honorable discharge,” and the other a young woman of 22 who moonlighted in the evenings following her day job at Meier & Frank [Department Store].

Transfusion Inn was located at 1139 SW 1st Ave 1961-1965 (possibly) It was located right at the end of the Hawthorne Bridge where the _____________ is presently (as of 2020). Milton LeRoy Buck owned the business per The Oregonian, January 5, 1961, where it was first mentioned in any press. This area must have been a rough part of town because of several notices in the paper. One with the headline Frightened Tavern Owner Gives $1,200 To Thug. And then again on March 27, 1961, CASH LOST ON BOUNCE where ‘three men picked pocketed Albert V Oman, 32 of his walled and $60.00 while throwing him out of The Transfusion Inn.” However, on April 7, 1963, in an article Stroll Along Waterfront Stirs Memories of City of Portland In Its Cosmopolitan Youth, “Some laughing men lol outside the Transfusion Inn…”

It appears that he had enough as he put the business up for sale, as stated in The Oregonian’s Business Opportunity Want Ad of October 27, 1963. [See Below] No record has been located about the business selling.