Portland's LGBTQ+ history honored by Bureau of Planning and Sustainability's Historic Resources Program

Led by the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability's Historic Resources Program, the LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project documents LGBTQ+ experiences during the emergence of queer life in Portland throughout the 20th century. This project worked to identify and designate places of significance to the queer community from 1905 to 1994, and to uncover and preserve the stories of love, kinship, hardship, discrimination, and activism associated with these places.

The project partnered with historians and community members to:

• Survey and contextualize a selection of sites their associated LBGTQ+ stories during the 1905-1994 time period.
• Nominate three LGBTQ+ resources to the National Register of Historic Places.
• Produce an online StoryMap that highlights the project's findings.

The publication of the survey, historic context statement, and StoryMap mark the completion of the 2022-2024 phase of the LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project.

Portland's LGBTQ+ Historic Sites StoryMap

Portland's LGBTQ+ Historic Sites StoryMap provides an overview of the project's findings in a compelling and accessible format, and showcases Portland's vibrant queer history throughout the 20th century. This interactive tool reveals the public and private spaces where the LGBTQ+ community lived, worked, played, and built community during this time. It also tells the story of discrimination that the LGBTQ+ community faced in almost every facet of life, including employment, healthcare, housing, family law, and mere existence.

This StoryMap is an effort to honor and recognize this invisible and erased history, and is not an exhaustive list of the places, people, and events significant to the queer community during this time period.

Explore this history for yourself by clicking on the map below.

Historic Resource Survey

The project identified over 400 Portland sites associated with LGBTQ+ history through research and input from community members. These sites included bars, bookstores, parks, residences, and other properties throughout the city.

From this initial list, 90 resources were selected for greater documentation through what is known as a reconnaissance level survey, a process for collecting architectural information from the public right-away. Typically, reconnaissance level surveys focus on architecturally significant properties that are over 50 years old. This process does not tend to capture places associated with historically excluded populations. The Portland LBGTQ+ Historic Resources project took a different approach by surveying sites as young as 30 years old, and documenting a deeper level of information to explain the resource's potential significance beyond architectural elements.

These 90 surveyed resources are included in the StoryMap and are available with an associated report through the City of Portland's Historic Resources Program.

Historic Context Statement

As a companion to the LGBTQ+ Historic Resource Survey and included in the StoryMap, LGBTQ+ History in Portland, Oregon: A Historic Context brings Portland's queer history to life during the 1905-1994 time period, and provides a framework for evaluating the significance of historic sites. While not an exhaustive accounting of LGBTQ+ history and associated places, the document explores Portland's LGBTQ+ history through six themes:

1. Queer Intimacies
2. LGBTQ+ Connections in Social Venues
3. LGBTQ+ Politics and Policing
4. LGBTQ+ Health
5. HIV/AIDS Impacts Portland
6. Queer Arts and Entertainment

About the LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project

Since its launch in late 2022, the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability's LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project has identified, documented, and contextualized several hundred historic resources associated with different aspects of Portland's LGBTQ+ history. During this process, Juniper House, Majestic Hotel, and Erv Lind Field rose to a level of significance and community support to be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places.

The LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project was comprised of staff from the Historic Resources Program, consultants led by Salazar Architect Inc., including Ernestina Fuenmayor, Kristen Minor of Minor Planning and Design, and Shayne Watson of Watson Heritage Consulting, and collaborators from the public. The LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project would not have been possible without decades of queer historical documentation work completed by Oregon Queer History Collective (formerly the Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest) and The Umbrella Project of Oregon. These organizations were among many key collaborators who provided hours of volunteer time, primary and secondary source research, personal and professional insights, and community connections to ensure the LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project reflected authentic and nuanced understandings of Portland's queer past.

The LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project was funded by a National Park Service's Underrepresented Communities Grant, an Oregon State Historic Preservation Office Heritage Grant, and general fund dollars allocated by the Portland City Council.

Questions about the LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project can be directed to the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability's Historic Resources Program.