Gay Chicago Memories: 1300 N. Wells

by Owen Keehnen

A Very Queer Street—Before there was North Halsted, there was 1300 N. Wells.
Long before the rainbow flags flew high on Chicago’s North Side, a single block on Wells Street pulsed with the heat and heart of gay liberation. Carol’s Speakeasy, Den One, the notorious Bijou Theater, Glory Hole Tavern, adult bookstores, backrooms, and cruising alleys—it was all there, hidden in plain sight on the east side of the 1300 block. And then it vanished.

In Chicago 1300 N. Wells, the lost world of 1970s and ’80s queer nightlife roars back to life. Through candid interviews with patrons, bartenders, and performers, plus unearthed ads, articles, and forgotten ephemera, author Owen Keehnen uncovers the stories behind the storefronts. This is more than nightlife nostalgia—it’s a raw, riveting portrait of a revolutionary era in Chicago’s gay community.

From the acclaimed author of Man’s More Than a Bathhouse and Dugan’s Bistro and the Legend of the Bearded Lady comes a thrilling excavation of LGBTQ+ history, sex, joy, danger, and resilience—just one block south of forgotten.

208 pages, Paperback

Published August 27, 2025

About the author

Writer and historian Owen Keehnen has had his fiction, essays, erotica, reviews, columns and interviews appear in dozens of magazines and anthologies worldwide. Keehnen is the author of the humorous gay novel Young Digby Swank (Wilde City Press, 2013), the gay novel The Sand Bar (Lethe Press, 2012) and the horror novel Doorway Unto Darkness (Dancing Moon Press, 2010). He also recently released the reference book The LGBT Book of Days (Wilde City Press, 2013). Along with Tracy Baim, he co-authored Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow (Prairie Avenue Productions, 2011) as well as Jim Flint: The Boy From Peoria (Prairie Avenue Productions, 2011). Over 100 of his interviews with various LGBT authors and activists from the 1990s have been collected in the book We’re Here, We’re Queer (Prairie Avenue Productions, 2011). He recently finished editing For My Brothers, the Mark Abramson memoir about life and love in San Francisco during the height of the AIDS epidemic. He co-edited Nothing Personal: Chronicles of Chicago’s LGBTQ Community 1977–1997 (Firetrap Press, 2009), was a contributor to Gay Press, Gay Power (Prairie Avenue Publications, 2012) and wrote ten biographical essays for the coffee table history book Out and Proud in Chicago (Surrey/Agate, 2008). Keehnen was on the founding committee and executive board of The Legacy Project and is currently a contributing biographer for the LGBT history-education-arts program focused on pride, acceptance, and bringing proper recognition to the courageous lives and contributions in LGBT history. He was the author of the Starz books, a four-volume series of interviews with gay porn stars. He has had two queer monologues adapted for the stage and served as co-editor of the Windy City Times Pride Literary Supplement for several years, was a co-founder of the horror film website RacksAndRazors.com, and a featured poet in Wilde City’s 2013 collection Falling Awake. He lives in Chicago with his partner, Carl, and his two ridiculously spoiled dogs, Flannery and Fitzgerald. He was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 2012.