HISTORY

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In 1971, Petie Brown, a trumpeter and young lesbian, got a part-time bartending job at Jack's A Go-Go to support her aspiring singing career. Word spread fast that a lesbian was behind the bar, and soon Jack's began attracting lesbian women in scores. Petie left the bar along the way, but the word was out, and the bar's owners welcomed the lesbian patrons. When the bar came up for sale 10 years later, Petie rounded up every penny she had and bought it. In 1980 she renamed it Summit Station, established it as a safe space for lesbians and friends, and thus was born Ohio's longest running lesbian bar. As Petie tells it, it was one of the first three lesbian bars in the United States. Forty-two years after the opening of the bar, a small group of former patrons banded together to pay tribute to Petie, the bar. and its thousands of patrons.

In partnership with the Ohio History Connection, a historical marker was placed permanently in front of the space that held Summit Station. The marker was dedicated on June 10, 2023.  We are raising funds to cover the costs associated with making a documentary film to properly tell the story for future generations. 

Free Beer Tomorrow is a documentary film project that tells the story of Jack's/Summit Station, Ohio's longest running lesbian bar.  With interviews from Peter Brown — a classically trained musician turned bar owner — to pioneering LGBTQ+ lawyer and legal scholar, Rhonda R. Rivera, and former patrons running the gamut of tap dancers, professional women's football players, feminist activists, bartenders and drag kings, the film explores lesbian culture in an era where bars were one of the few safe-havens from an oppressive and homophobic world.

Summit Station touched so many lives. Let's tell the world how much it meant to all of us. Still in production, a rough cut of the film is anticpated in late 2024. 

If you would like to be interviewed for the film and/or an Oral History project, please let us know by filling out this form.