Was Bloomington's first gay bar in the Irish Lion building? What we found about its history

After its closure in May, the Irish Lion Restaurant and Pub now joins the long and dramatic history of the West Kirkwood building it inhabited for over four decades. The building is currently listed for sale by Chris Cockerham with FC Tucker/Bloomington Realtors.

Here are some of the highlights from over a century of articles from The Herald-Times and Bloomington Evening World archives.

West Kirkwood: Saloons, hotels and a questionable reputation

The Irish Lion building began in 1882 as a pub and inn, according to the restaurant’s website. A map of the city in 1892 shows the inn as Bundy’s European Hotel, a safe haven for travelers on the nearby railroad and boarding house tenants. There was a saloon on the first floor.

The building has long been rumored to have provided salacious services. Though no specific building was mentioned, a newspaper article about county fairs in the 1890s described “questionable women shows” that would take place at the fair before being transferred to the inns and saloons on West Kirkwood at night. The street and surrounding blocks had a sordid reputation and its tendency to hold rainwater on each side of the street gave it the name “the levee.”

For decades, the area saw drunken fights, gambling and prostitution, leading to the nickname becoming somewhat derogatory. In 1909, the police raided an illegal saloon on the corner of Morton Street and Kirkwood Avenue, finding “enough booze…to stock a small saloon,” and a couple in a locked room who quickly got dressed before they were rounded up with the other arrestees — 18 total — and taken to jail.

The illicit activities on the levee continued. A later article reflected on the “Morton Street girls,” at the time “an accepted institution as much as the grocery and shoe stores.”

According to the H-T archives, it was tradition in the levee to celebrate “bock beer season” in the springtime by posting pictures of long-whiskered billygoats in windows. Bock beer is a dark, dense beer usually brewed in autumn and served in the spring. The season would also bring “sporting gentlemen” who would provide a “peculiar service…over the mahogany” and in upstairs poker rooms.

From Kirkwood bar to Irish pub

In the decades following, the building was home to Hinkle’s Lunch in the 1950s-60s and the Kirkwood Bar shortly afterward. The Kirkwood Bar is mentioned in The Herald-Times archives in 1968, when co-owners Jack Shields and Hank McGuire locked themselves in their beer cooler and had to dig through the ceiling into the apartment above to escape. Advertisements for the bar that year listed offerings like fried potatoes, corn bread, beans, fresh fish, sandwiches and cold beer.

Ownership of the bar changed hands a few times, ultimately ending with Don Ellington. The bar hosted at least two weddings in 1974, including a marriage between employee “Squeaky” and bar patron Flora Mae Kaiser. In 1976, the New Horizons Gay Community Services Center moved to a spot above the bar to offer counseling sessions. The same year, the bar advertised “female impersonators,” another term for drag queens, in an Indy Crossroads newsletter.

In 1977, an H-T writer described the Kirkwood Bar as a “hard-knocks railroad-track bar” that had begun to attract a “gay/straight crowd.” The bar was also listed in an October 1977 edition of “Gay Chicago News.”

Larry McConnaughy opened the Irish Lion in 1982 after the Kirkwood Bar’s closure, a century after the building began its life as a tavern. The restaurant and pub advertised authentic Irish food and the historic nature of the building, purchasing antiques to decorate the interior. The restaurant’s history fueled ghost stories, from glasses flying across the room to commotion from phantom parties.

The Irish Lion building even made it into the ‘80s sitcom “Cheers,” the opening credits of which include several photographs from old bars across the country.

Reach Marissa Meador at mmeador@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: History of Irish Lion building on Bloomington's Kirkwood Avenue