Portland’s LGBTQ+ historic buildings and sites featured in a zine

This past summer, the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability’s Historic Resources Program released a zine about the LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project, an ongoing initiative to preserve places and spaces associated with the city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+ histories. BPS distributed copies of the zine at this summer’s Portland Pride event to share information about the City’s historic preservation efforts on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community.

View full size image of Cover page of the zine showing the storefront of a commercial building associated with LGBTQ+ historic in Portland.

Zines, self-publishing, and media are some of the various historical themes being explored in the LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project. That’s because print media played a significant role in Portland’s LGBTQ+ history, providing a way to form connections, relay information from across the state, and celebrate each other.

For instance, the publication of The Fountain in 1971 marked the first newspaper made by and for the LGBTQ+ community. By the 1980s and 90s, several issues of Just Out, Rag Times, Alternative Connection, and others expanded press coverage of and connections in Oregon’s LGBTQ+ communities. Now the locations associated with these publications are being identified as part of the LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project.

Check out the LGBTQ+ Historic Sites Project zine to learn more about our preservation efforts, and to share your memories of LGBTQ+ Portland. Community input is vital to the success of this project.