The Crossroads

Nobody set out to build a gayborhood on Cedar Springs. Dallas Voice reported that gay-owned businesses simply moved into worn buildings. Richard Longstaff, a Briton, planted Union Jack there in the early 1970s; The Bronx, the first gay-owned restaurant, opened in 1975, Throckmorton Mining Company in 1978 as the first gay bar on the street, and J.R.'s Bar & Grill in 1980. Southwest Airlines' twenty-five-dollar peanuts fares, the paper said, brought gay men from across Texas each weekend. Crossroads Market gave activists rented stalls for antiques, books and gifts, and the street's identity followed.

What the plaque says

The Crossroads Despite Dallas's reputation as one of the state's more conservative cities, its LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) community was among the first in Texas to organize politically and socially. In 1947, the city became home to one of the first gay bars in Texas, Club Reno, and in 1972 was the site of the first Gay Pride Parade in Texas. In 1980, the Pride Parade moved from downtown to Cedar Springs Road. The area surrounding the intersection of Throckmorton Street and Cedar Springs Road has been considered the center of the Dallas LGBTQ community since the early 1970s and is known as "The Gay Crossroads" or "The Crossroads." In the late 1960s and early 1970s, The Crossroads was a magnet for the city's counterculture movements. Gays and Lesbians began moving to the area, drawn to its Bohemian image and picturesque architecture. More gay-owned businesses and bars followed, and by the end of the 1970s, the majority of businesses in the area catered to the LGBTQ community. With the onslaught of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, The Crossroads became not only an entertainment district, but also a center for political activism, social services and medical testing. As the historic heart of the LGBTQ community of Dallas, The Crossroads remains the location of the oldest gay businesses in the city and as the primary gathering point for LGBTQ political and social events, including the Alan Ross Freedom Parade. The Crossroads continues to serve the neighborhood and the city of Dallas as a symbol of social, economic and political action among the LGBTQ community. (2017)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dallas Museum of Art — 1.7 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 2.2 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 2.9 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 3.5 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• Oaklawn United Methodist Church — 0.2 mi
• Robert E. Lee Park — 0.5 mi
• Parkland Hospital — 0.5 mi
• Pediatric Orthopedic Care in Texas — 0.6 mi