Visualizing Queer Space and American Life
The Bob Damron Address Books are a series of gay travel guides published by Bob Damron between 1964 and 2021. First published in an era when most states banned same-sex intimacy both in public and private spaces, these travel guides helped gays (and to a lesser extent lesbians) find bars, cocktail lounges, bookstores, restaurants, bathhouses, cinemas, and cruising grounds that catered to people like themselves. Much like the Green Books of the 1950s and 1960s, which African Americans used to find friendly businesses that would cater to black citizens in the era of Jim Crow apartheid, Damron's guidebooks aided a generation of queer people in identifying sites of community, pleasure, and politics.
How to Use This Site
Bob Damron's Address Books grew and evolved alongside LGBTQ America itself. The first guide in 1965 listed just 785 locations. By 2003, that number had exploded to over 7,500 entries across the contiguous United States. But it wasn't just the quantity that changed—Damron's categorization system adapted to reflect shifting community needs and technologies. In the 1970s, (PT) marked locations with pool tables. The 1980s introduced (V) for video bars, marking establishments with televisions—cutting-edge technology at the time. By the 1990s, (WC) identified wheelchair-accessible spaces following the Americans with Disabilities Act. Our visualizations let you explore these changes and discover how LGBTQ spaces transformed across decades.
Interactive Map
Explore locations across the United States on an interactive map with filters for year, type, and amenity features
Visualize Change
Visualize Change Analyze how Damron's categorizations for locations changed over time.
Historical Vignettes
Learn about what the guides reveal about LGBTQ life, culture, and community across decades.
Locations Database
Search and filter our database to see locations and read Damron's entry about them
Who was Bob Damron?
Bob Damron published his first travel guide in 1964—a pocket-sized directory of 785 gay-friendly locations that would grow into an essential resource for generations of LGBTQ Americans. A Los Angeles native and San Francisco bar owner, Damron built a publishing empire from his side project of cataloging safe spaces. What started as 3,000 copies of that first guide grew exponentially. By 1987, when Damron sold his company, 100,000 copies circulated annually. The guides continued publication until 2019, capturing major changes in queer American life through the AIDS crisis, the emergence of the internet, and beyond. Yet despite creating such a vital resource that helped queer people find community across the country for over five decades, Damron himself remains largely unknown. Discover the remarkable story of the entrepreneur and community builder who helped map queer America.
Read More about Bob Damron