![]() ![]() Friends remember Gene as an artist and an eccentric man. One of those people was his dear friend Gene Elder. He knew the right people to help his visions come to life. ![]() Hap was well connected and well respected in San Antonio. (Copyright 2021 by KSAT - All rights reserved.) Profile of Hap Veltman in the San Antonio Express-News published April 1, 1984. “There are those little pockets of culture, and that’s the kind of thing that Hap created,” Annalisa said. Mary’s strip on the map as a nightlife destination. Hap also helped create the Blue Star Arts Complex in Southtown and putt the St. ![]() It helped start the trend of businesses along the river that used the scenery to attract customers. We’re all familiar with it today, but it was a revolutionary idea then. In 1968, Hap and his business partner opened Kangaroo Court, one of the first restaurants along the River Walk that actually faced he river. “He’s what they would call the fairy godmother of San Antonio who did all these amazing things,” Peace said. Hap was a lawyer by trade, but friends say he was also a developer, a conservationist and an activist. ![]() “The one drink turned into a lifelong quest for me,” Joan said.Īnnalisa Peace came to know Hap while working at The Greenhouse, one of the many businesses he developed. When she turned 18, she took him up on the offer and they quickly became lifelong friends. Joan remembers Hap walking over to her and inviting her to visit San Antonio Country to enjoy a drink on him. “I originally met Hap disco dancing with other high schoolers down on the River Walk,” Joan Duckworth said. But he also had a hand in developing some of the most well-known places in town. There would be no Bonham Exchange or San Antonio Country without Hap Veltman. ‘The fairy godmother of San Antonio’: Who was Hap Veltman? It was demolished soon after, but it didn’t take long for him to open a new club. Hap sold the San Antonio Country nightclub in 1981. “That’s still what a large part of our community still embraces at the clubs that we have today.” “It really was about happiness and bringing the community together,” Salcido said. Salcido is too young to have ever gone to San Antonio Country. “That’s where they organized, that’s where they planned our marches and that’s where they planned our demonstrations that were really leading into the civil rights movement for the LGBTQ+ community.” “These establishments acted as community centers,” said Robert Salcido, Executive Dir. They were places where people could be themselves. Those we talked to say it’s because bars and nightclubs were about more than drinking and dancing. So, why bars and nightclubs? Oftentimes when we talk about the fight for LGBTQ+ civil rights, we talk about these establishments. (KSAT Explains Military hearing folder San Antonio Country Nightclub) While it was raided periodically by police, it was thought to be a safe place where gay men and women didn’t have to hide. Paul’s Grove opened in the 1920s and by the 1960s and 1970s it was a microcosm of queer life in San Antonio, Gohlke said. And one of the most well-known was a spot near Helotes named Paul’s Grove, also known as The Country. Gohlke’s research also shows that while there were some smaller clubs and bars in town that would allow openly gay and lesbian customers, most of the gay-friendly venues were on the outskirts of town. “Scholarly research has shown that many of the armed forces personnel during the second World War were gay men and women who had this opportunity to come out of their rural hometowns and go to big cities,” Gohlke said. Melissa Gohlke, Assistant Archivist at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a local LGBTQ+ historian, attributes a lot of growth in San Antonio’s gay and lesbian nightlife scene to our position as a military city during World War II. But it is far from the first gay bar in San Antonio. ‘Insulated from discrimination’: The bars before the Bonham ![]()
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