Other bars along the Miracle Mile included the Ramrod, the Stud, the Gas Station, the Covered Wagon, the Leatherneck, Dirty Sally’s, the Plunge, and the Eagle, among others. Life magazine featured it and the Jumpin’ Frog on Polk Street in their “Homosexuality in America” article on Jin which they proclaimed San Francisco to be the gayest city in America – a full five years (almost to the day) before the Stonewall Riots in New York City sparked the public perception of the modern gay rights movement.įeBe’s opened on Folsom Street in 1966, helping establish what would be called the Miracle Mile, a strip of leather and bear bars along and near Folsom Street. In 1962, the Tool Box opened at 4th and Harrison, becoming the City’s first gay leather bar South of Market.
The Sailor Boy Tavern, which opened on Howard Street in 1936 near the Embarcadero YMCA, had a bit of a rougher clientele than other gay bars in the City, and that perhaps helped set the tone of gay bars in the South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood that came later.
