“Men with supple bodies and calloused hands…” Fierce women celebrating newfound freedoms in “the Pit”. An out Detroit Lion, and drag queen Halloween parades color the tales of Detroit’s hard-fought LGBTQ history. In celebration of the earliest recorded LGBTQ history in the Motor City, Detroit History Tours is proud to present Detroit Historic Pride, A Walking Tour.

This two-hour tour visits the locations of importance to Detroit’s earliest gay and lesbian communities, from bars to bathhouses, safe havens to protest sites ; and discusses pioneers who fought for liberation, celebrities who became caught up in stings, and everyday people who risked arrest and humiliation to be their authentic selves.

Together with your guide you’ll explore the locations that were Detroit’s first gay spaces, including bars catering to gay men clustered at the intersection of Farmer and Bates Streets around World War II, and learn about house parties and "buffet flats" that supported the Black LGBT community. We’ll explore the trials, fights, tribulations, and celebrations of the community long before Palmer Park, and later Ferndale, became known as regional centers of LGBTQ community and visibility. We hope you’ll join us as we investigate where LGBTQ Detroiters first began connecting publicly, fighting the battles that have given us the freedoms to live, love, and be ourselves.

Meet your guide: Michael Boettcher is an urban planner with experience working for Wayne and Macomb Counties, the City of Detroit, and running a couple suburban downtown development agencies. He has served on the boards and staffs of a handful of Detroit-area community development nonprofits as well. He’s been creating and conducting tours since the early 1990s, having fallen in love with Detroit architecture and urban spaces while getting lost coming downtown in high school. Michael has sung in a handful of Michigan Opera Theater opera choruses, published a couple dozen poems, loves to show off his collection of antique Detroit architecture postcards and is very slowly building a scale model of downtown Detroit in Legos (brick donations accepted). He remembers seeing the Lions at Tiger Stadium and the Red Wings at Olympia. In May 2021, he finally made it to his 50 th state.

To best enjoy this tour guests should wear comfortable walking shoes, arrive prepared to walk approximately 1.6 mile in two hours, over city streets, and stand for extended periods of time. Weather appropriate clothing is highly recommended. This tour is best suited for guests over the age of 14 years old, however adult themes will be discussed and participation is at the discretion of their guardians.

Your order confirmation email will serve as your only ticket. Please save your email and be prepared to show it on your phone or printed to board the bus. (We do this to avoid the ticketing fees that come along with ticketing systems. The price of your ticket will remain the same throughout checkout with no added fees for tax.)

This tour departs from and returns to the street corner of Griswold St. and W. Congress St. Please meet your tour guide on the sidewalk. The Guardian Building dominates this corner and can be used at the navigation address (500 Griswold St, Detroit, MI 48226). Our tour guides will be wearing Detroit History Tours shirts and big ol’ smiles. Parking is available at The Buhl Parking Garage, across the street at 525 Griswold St, Detroit, MI 48226. The costs vary from 10.00-20.00 dollars; on street parking is also available for $1.50 per hour at city meters.