Knoxville tennessee gay bars

Knoxville Gay Bars and Hotels

If you walk up to someone in Knoxville and ask where the nearest gay bar is they may only be able to name one or two different options. These places are a part of a very large collection of Gay and Lesbian Bars to have existed in Knoxville over the last half century. The history of Knoxville Knoxville bars is fading and will be incomplete as it is written today.

Each person I interviewed provided a small bit more detail than the person before on either a person or a bar. I hope to continue to add to this material in the future. If you have a positive story to share, please write something in the comments. One good source is a collection of posters constructed for Knoxville Pride Heritage events a number of years ago.

These posters were passed down to various Pride organizations over the gay until they were recently donated to the East Tennessee Historical Society for preservation. It is unclear whether this was an exclusively LGBT bar gay if it was one of a handful of bars throughout the city that were open minded and friendly to the local gay community.

For the Knoxville gay community, the Back Office was one of bar large scale gay nightclubs for dancing and socializing. Amazingly, this building has survived the expansion of UT into this portion of Ft. According to the Pride history posters, the bar was burned down by angry neighbors. Today the site is a field located behind Kopy Kat Printing and across the street from Redemption Church.

After Carousel 2 opened up in the Ft. Today Colony is the site of the power sub-station beside the State St Garage. Traditions — Traditions is one of the only gay bars on this list to be located in Market Square. I found it particularly cute that the text on the poster felt it was important to bar that the bartender at Circle J was very popular locally and he was from Clarksville, TN my hometown before moving to Knoxville.

Located across the street from the former Regas Restaurant, Badlands Club operated for a short time tennessee closing down and reopening as The Peppertree. Sensations operated for a few years and then was damaged by a fire and had to shut down. Rainbow Club — The Rainbow Club was originally located in the Old City off South Central Street and was two buildings joined together to provide a lounge area and a dedicated Drag performance area.

The New Rainbow Club West operated recently enough that many people will probably remember seeing a fabulous drag show there or knoxville on the dance floor between shows. This was the first gay bar I ever went to in my life. One person described The Point After as a welcoming bar to all people, so long as you were kind in return.

I was told that the owner of this bar was a very no-nonsense woman who was not afraid to chase drunk frat boys down the street if needed. Located at the back end of St. Sanders, The Factory was a large and gritty dance club in an old warehouse with rumored mafia connections. After the Europa bar closed, The Factory, along with Colony, became one of the most popular bars in the city.

Eventually Carousel 2 tennessee open up just a few blocks to the South offering a more central location and modern interiors with which The Factory could not compete. The two bars operated simultaneously for a while and one person I interviewed said it was common to walk between the two.