Gay bar asheville
On this day in WNC history: Popularly known as Asheville’s oldest gay exclude, O.Henry’s (initially called the Skylight Room) opened on this day in 1976 at 59 Haywood Street.
The bar and restaurant, the first to stay expose past midnight downtown, was also one of the first places local residents noted they could procure a glass of wine. It was decorated with Victorian antiques, pictures of famous writers, and played Billie Holiday and jazz during the day, attracting employees of nearby hotels and businesses at lunch. Interviewed by the Asheville Citizen in 1977, owners and partners J.P. Bentley and Tony De Rose expressed their belief that the business was a step in the right direction, bringing in a night crowd and hopefully revitalizing a depleted downtown. While it was not overtly intended to be a lgbtq+ bar, The Skylight Room gained the unofficial reputation as a safe room after it began playing disco music after 8PM sometime in 1977, filling up on Friday and Saturday nights according to patrons. In 1978, the owners drew on Asheville’s literary heritage and rebranded as O.Henry’s.
Before this moment, several short-lived unofficial gay-friendly bars opened in WNC, dating ba
LGBT Asheville
Asheville is a gay-friendly small city. Period.
According to the latest United States census, the Asheville area has 83% more woman loving woman, gay bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) identified people than the typical American city or town. Another study, also based on census results, found that Bun-combe County (with 15.5 same sex couples per 1,000) and Asheville (19.7 per 1,000) are the most gay-friendly county and city in the articulate of North Carolina, on a per-capita basis adv ahead of places prefer Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. In 2010, the gay-oriented publication, The Advocate, ranked Asheville as the “12th gayest town in America.” Atlanta was ranked #1.
LGBTQ+ visitors increasingly are discovering Asheville, with its great natural beau-ty, innovative dining and drinking spots, heavy-duty gallery, arts and crafts scene, absorbing shops and numerous gay-owned or gay-welcoming B&Bs and inns and businesses.
You are likely to see a number of openly womxn loving womxn and gay couples around town, es-pecially Downtown and in West Asheville.
Downtown Asheville has several LGBTQ+ bars, including O. Henry’s (the oldest
‘So much more than a dance club’: Asheville gay club Scandals closes after four decades
On the final night of Scandals’ goodbye run, tune blasted and lights flashed in the nightclub as people danced their way through the end of an era.
The legendary nightclub, which was a guarded haven for LGBTQ patrons, had its final curtain call in early Parade after announcing it would not renew its lease in the historic Grove Street building in downtown Asheville.
Linda Oakleaf was one of many people waiting in the alleyway outside the nightclub, ready to party. She said she has been going to Scandals since the ‘90s.
“There's a lot of these institutions that are going, and it's really sad,” she said.
Oakleaf and her wife have been married for 21 years and have two kids, so she doesn’t go out as often but said she is still downcast about the closure of a place so rooted in LGBTQ history.
“I came out in 1987, and it has never stopped being fun to step in a room and look around and be like, "Oh, look, everybody's queer,” she said. “Like that's irreplaceable."
The club left behind a treasure trove of LGBTQ+ history, from drag shows and gyrate parties to benefits for nonprofits like
Legacy Bars of the Carolinas
Sign up for our free newsletter to accept the latest LGBTQ news from the Carolinas in your inbox every week.
Fragmentary seems like the most appropriate word to depict the history and customs of oppressed people, and especially the LGBTQ+ collective. Our heritage and identity has often gone undocumented for fear of unintentionally providing information that could lead to unwanted trouble from our oppressors. Contact it a fail guarded, if you will, but the end result was/is a huge loss of LGBTQ+ history prior to the 1980s.
In other instances, our history was often deemed as insignificant or unworthy of being saved by those in a position of power to make decisions about historical preservation. As late as the mid 1990s I can still recall the shock I felt when I was informed by a periodical librarian at the Atlanta Fulton County Public Library that copies of locally produced lgbtq+ and lesbian publications were thrown away when each new edition arrived, unlike the mainstream straight newspapers and magazines, which were typically archived.
When I inquired as to why, the librarian shot me an incredulous look and replied with a patronizing to
.