Louis area at the time, but these do not seem to have been raided that night.Ībout one dozen law enforcement officials participated. We know that several other lesbian and gay bars were in operation in the St.
The third bar, Al's, was located nearby at 115 North 9th Street (now on the site of AT&T Center skyscraper).
Two of these bars, the Entre Nous and Uncle John's, were located across the street from one another on the 600 block of Pine Street (parking garages now occupy the sites of both bars). They detail a series of coordinated and apparently simultaneous raids conducted around midnight on three downtown bars. The records consist of three related police reports dated August 27, 1954. Uncovering these documents was the result of many hours of detective work in several local archival collections, culminating with a Sunshine Law request to the Records Division of the St. Up until now, however, the Project had been unable to locate any written records of these raids. Older members of the local LGBT community have long told stories about these incidents. It's not news that in decades past the police sometimes raided St.
The records also shed light on the changing relationship between queer people and St. More than sixty years old, these previously unstudied sources offer a fascinating glimpse of gay nightlife in the 1950s. Louis LGBT History Project obtained historical records that officially document police raids on local gay bars.
