Former University District lesbian bar receives historical marker

JOSIE STEWART

Lantern reporter stewart.2117@osu.edu

This story was originally published March 21, 2023.

One of Ohio’s longest-running lesbian bars, Summit Station, will receive a historical marker in June after community members worked to commemorate its impact in central Ohio.

Two years ago, Julia Applegate, senior lecturer in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Ohio State and former patron of the bar, said she started the process for obtaining the marker to document the often forgotten queer history in Ohio. While the bar no longer exists, its impact left a mark on Columbus.

“For at least eight or 10 years, I was there three or four nights a week,” Applegate said. “When I first moved here, I was just newly out and had a job, and we would go there to play pool or after softball games, to watch shows, to listen to music. I did karaoke, played darts, went to fundraisers and made plans for my life. It was just really functioning almost more like a community center than a bar.”

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Originally named Jack’s A Go-Go, the bar was purchased around 1980 by one of its lesbian bartenders and renamed Summit Station, becoming one of the largest women’s bars in Columbus, Applegate said. After several decades, the bar closed in 2008 after the owner, Petie Brown, became ill.

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Applegate said the process for the marker included the approval to raise funds, writing the text for the marker and getting the right permits for it to be placed where the bar once was at 2210 Summit St. The Summit Music Hall, which now stands at that address, will be hosting events June 10 to celebrate the dedication.

Applegate said she has helped raise funds for these festivities and a documentary about the bar’s legacy.

“I’ve lived in Ohio pretty much all my life, and I really love history. One of the things that’s true about the history of Ohio is that there’s plenty of LGBTQ history, but it’s not documented and shared,” Applegate said. “I had been talking to some people at Ohio History Connection who acknowledge that history isn’t documented, and they’re trying to fix that.”

Ben Anthony — manager of the community engagement department at the Ohio History Connection, the nonprofit that manages historical markers around the state — said in a statement of the 1,800

Ohio History markers, Summit Station will be the third in the state and first in central Ohio that focuses on the LGBTQ+ community.

“We hope that every Ohioan can discover Ohio Historical Markers that reflect their own history and unique Ohio story,” Anthony said. “The group who submitted the Summit Station Ohio Historical Marker should be commended for their incredible passion, research and perseverance to memorialize an institution for the lesbian community in Central Ohio.”

Applegate said she is proud to be a part of this process and is excited to see more markers in central Ohio and beyond to continue documenting such histories.

“Columbus has a reputation as being the most LGBTQ-friendly city in the state,” Applegate said. “I moved here because it had that reputation and stayed here because as much of that is true, but we just haven’t gotten it together to get a marker, and I’m really excited that this is the first one.”