Some Indianapolis establishments were widely known. “They'd be afraid people would shoot them … or see them.' 'People years ago wouldn't have been comfortable with windows,' said Steve Warman, a longtime Indy Bartender. Gay bars in Indianapolis served not only as meeting spots for gay men and women, but also sites where the gay community could be shielded from societal harassment, especially because most gay bars had no windows. As Michael Bohr, founder of the Chris Gonzalez Library and Archives noted 'Even way back then there was a lot going on. Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, had just two gay bars each. In fact, the Hoosier capital could boast more gay bars than most of her surrounding urban neighbors, over a dozen by 1970. 1 Indianapolis, a city of over 700,000 people by the time of New York's Stonewall Riots in 1969, was no exception.
By the end of the 1930s, with the tightening of what it meant to be “homosexual” and “heterosexual,” bars that served exclusively gay men and lesbian women began to spring up rapidly in American cities.
