Club Baths was a chain ofgay bathhouses in the United States and Canada with particular prominence from the 1960s through the 1990s.
At its peak it included 42 bathhouses:Akron,Atlanta,Atlantic City,Baltimore,Boston,Buffalo,Camden,Chicago,Cleveland (two locations),Columbus,Dallas,Dayton,Detroit,Hartford,Houston,Indianapolis,Jacksonville,Kansas City,Key West,Los Angeles,Miami,Milwaukee,Minneapolis,New Haven,New York,Newark,Philadelphia,Phoenix,Pittsburgh,Providence,St. Louis,San Francisco,Tampa,Toledo,Washington, D.C.,London (Ontario), andToronto.[1]
The chain claimed to have at least 500,000 members. Most of the bathhouses were closed in the 1990s either by government agencies or a changing market after charges were made that it contributed to the spread ofAIDS.[2]
The Club was founded in 1965 by John "Jack" W. Campbell (born 1932) and two other investors who paid $15,000 to buy a closed Finnish bath house inCleveland, Ohio. Campbell wanted to provide cleaner, brighter amenities that were a contrast to the dark, dirty environment that existed previously.[2]
Campbell, a former president of theUniversity of MichiganYoung Democrats and a member of the ClevelandMattachine Society, was active ingay politics and was on the Board of theNational Gay Task Force. At one point while encounteringTroy Perry, founder of theMetropolitan Community Church, Perry was said to have told him "we have a hundred churches and a total of 30,000 members." Campbell replied, "Well, although we only have thirty churches, we have 300,000 members."[2]
Campbell was also active in the fight against theSave Our Children campaign headed byAnita Bryant in the late 1970s.
TheOttawa Club Baths (3,000 members) was raided in May 1976 by the police.[3] TheToronto Club Baths and three other bathhouses in Toronto were raided on February 5, 1981, in a police action known asOperation Soap.[4]
3,000 men visited the San Francisco Club Baths every week before it closed down.[5] It was located on the corner of 8th and Howard, where it was replaced by an Episcopal sanctuary.[6]
Bathhouses that today claim a Club Baths heritage include the CBC Resorts Club Body Center, which has bathhouses inMiami, Florida,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, andProvidence, Rhode Island,[7] and The Clubs, which has facilities inFort Lauderdale,Houston,Miami,Columbus,Dallas,Indianapolis, andSt. Louis.[8]Chuck Renslow and Chuck Fleck—co-owners of Club Baths locations in Chicago, Kansas City, and Phoenix[9]—later openedMan's Country.[10]