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“But it shows that there was this interrogation.
It remains unclear if the gay MSU student in the police report was ever prosecuted, or if his story was ever revealed publicly. It was a time when men at the University of Michigan were arrested in sting operations and paraded before the media. Retzloff said the uncovered report reflects the 1950s, when law enforcement launched “savage, savage, savage crackdowns” on gays. Granted, it’s fragmented, but it’s very telling.”
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“This shows that as hard as they tried to eradicate homosexual establishments from society, they couldn’t even erase them. “Part of why it’s hidden is it was forced to be hidden,” Retzloff said of the uncovered history. That bar closed years ago when developer Pat Gillespie purchased the location. Stober’s, which was known as Rustic Village in the late ‘60s, was listed in gay travel guides as a gay bar.ĭespite Lansing’s history as a hotbed of lesbian activism and thought, and its nationally recognized women’s community, no bar catering to lesbians and bisexual women in the area has been identified before the 1990s opening of Club 505, at the corner of Shiwassee and Cedar streets. The first gay owned bar, Trammpp’s Disco, and Joe Covello’s, which opened in the ‘70s, were demolished in the ‘90s to make way for the baseball stadium. Some of those bars are long gone now like Olsen’s and Town Pump, which was located across the street from Olsen’s and was a hot spot in the ‘60s. The list was compiled from various gay publications and archival research. Retzloff has helped City Pulse identify 16 locations in Lansing, East Lansing and Meridian Township that served as gay bars. The two-page report is shedding light on early LGBTQ experiences in Lansing, particularly gathering places like gay bars. The recording was turned over the MSU Police and led to the investigation. The unnamed student was being investigated after another student secretly recorded him discussing his own homosexuality as well as that of other MSU students. Lansing,” Ryal wrote in a police report forwarded to the Office of the Dean of Students and command staff in the MSU Department of Public Safety nearly 60 years ago. Photo Courtesy of the Capital Area District Library“He (the unidentified student) stated that most of his contacts had been made at Olsen’s Bar, 325 N.