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Upon occasion they showed up, but the owners devised a strategy to thwart the efforts of law enforcement.
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This is not to say the police were unaware of the goings on within the venue. The Country, isolated as it was, provided an environment where intimacy flourished. If the police got wind of two men or women dancing together, a raid would surely ensue. Any form of intimate gestures, especially same-sex dancing, was expressly forbidden in city clubs. Same-sex dancing underpinned much of the Country’s popularity. If a friend said they were going to the country for the weekend, you knew Paul’s Grove was their destination.
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Paul’s Grove near Helotes, most always referred to as the Country, was a popular sanctuary for queer San Antonians. In other rural getaways, more was on the menu than lush landscapes. Kline’s provided a rural retreat for gay women where frolicking in the fields provided a much-needed reprieve from the concrete confines of city life. For lesbians, the refuge of choice was Kline’s located miles out of town on Fredericksburg Road. Queers wishing to escape the constraints and controls of the city, fled to venues far from San Antonio’s core. Although the bars were off the beaten path, some patrons took care to hide their identities as incursions by military and local police were still a periodic occurrence and exposure as a homosexual carried serious consequences such as dishonorable discharge for military personnel, estrangement from family, and loss of employment. Comradery and conviviality were freely exchanged within these cramped quarters and lasting bonds formed. Out of mainstream city life, these spaces served as a haven for those who shared same-sex affinities. The Acme bar situated just north of downtown San Antonio on Austin Street and the Top Hat located on the east side across from the city cemeteries, welcomed a queer clientele. However, these spaces did not provide total immunity from law enforcement infiltrations. Peripheral spaces removed from the city’s downtown core, somewhat insulated queers from military incursions and enabled them to build the tentative bonds of community. Military policing of queer space continued even after the war ended and the importance of San Antonio as a training hub solidified.
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Ironically, the military facilitated the very behaviors they sought to stamp out. Posted in barracks, off-limits lists also provided a directory of where to go if you were a gay or lesbian heading out for a night on the town. “Venereal contacts, bawdy houses, and morals,” coded language on the lists, identified hotbeds of homosexuality which were out of bounds. The Life Saver Grill and other clubs around the city came under scrutiny and landed on the off-limits list, a mechanism designed to discourage GIs and WACs from patronizing establishments deemed a threat to morality and physical health. However, such spaces were often under surveillance by military police as federal legislation, entitled the MayAct, moved to regulate activities such as prostitution and homosexuality. Sites of queer coalescence provided a respite from the rigors of military training. Within such spaces, queer men and women found community, if only temporarily. The Life Saver Grill and Keyhole Club, both on the city’s east side pulsed with jazz, racy floor shows, and a racially mixed clientele. Historian Alan Bérubé contends that, “when they could get away from military bases, they discovered and contributed to a rich gay nightlife-parties, bars, and nightclubs-that flourished in war boom cities.” A thriving night scene existed in San Antonio wherein gay men and women found niches that attracted a diverse clientele. Gay men and women joined the services in great numbers and many came to San Antonio for training. Within these spaces, queers explored homosexual identities, embraced gender fluidity, experimented with transgressive appearance, and ultimately, laid the foundation for an emerging queer community.Įarly vestiges of San Antonio’s queer community emerged during the 1940s as the city expanded to accommodate an influx of military personnel. During the 1940s through the 1970s, lesbians, gays, and trans San Antonians came together in peripheral spaces peppered throughout the city and its surrounds. As we explore contemporary notions of gender, identity, and appearance, we can look to the past to ascertain how our present-day interpretations are grounded in the evolution of queer communities decades ago.