The gay bars: Tulisa's to After Dark

1971 — one room's line

April 29, 1971: Fort Wayne's gay-bar record begins on a single dated night. On April 29, 1971, Charles Miller — known on stage as Tula — opened Tulisa's, the first gay bar in Fort Wayne and, on the club's account, in northeast Indiana, in a period when, as Fort Wayne Pride's magazine puts it, opening such a room took nerve against community backlash. Miller was an entertainer and show director, and the room he opened became the institution through which Fort Wayne's gay community organized its public life for the next half-century. The bar changed hands and names along the way: by 1981 it was known as Up the Street, and that year Miller's friend Leo Vodde bought it and renamed it After Dark. Directory listings place After Dark, with its adjoining dance club Babylon, at 112 East Masterson Avenue, just south of downtown — the address the pair of rooms has held since.

The room as institution: What distinguishes After Dark in the record is not longevity alone but function. Miller stayed on as the club's entertainment director for decades — After Dark called him, at his death, Indiana's oldest working drag queen — and he turned the room's stage into a fundraising engine: through the Community AIDS Action Team and After Dark's Annual AIDS Benefit, he raised over one million dollars across thirty years for HIV and AIDS awareness, education, and prevention, with yearly benefits for the Positive Resource Connection besides. Charles Miller died in January 2023, aged 83, and the club held his celebration of life on January 14, 2023. In November 2026 Fort Wayne Pride's magazine marked the room's forty-five years as After Dark — the count running from Vodde's 1981 renaming, on a line that runs unbroken to Tulisa's in 1971. The wider documented record is thin beside this one room: the city's general press notes in passing that Henry's, the Main Street institution of the tavern entries, was known as a gay-friendly room, but the gay bars as such are, on the record reached, Tulisa's and its successors — one address, three names, fifty-five years.

Sources:

1. After Dark Nightclub, press release of January 2, 2023, as preserved by Our Community Roots — Charles Miller ("Tula"), owner of Tulisa's, "the first gay bar in Northeast Indiana (opening on April 29, 1971)," entertainment director at After Dark for decades, and the million dollars raised over thirty years through the Community AIDS Action Team and the Annual AIDS Benefit; the January 14, 2023 celebration of life at After Dark.
2. The Journal Gazette, as reported by Windy City Times, "National" roundup (January 8, 2023) — Miller's death at 83, the April 29, 1971 opening of Tulisa's, the 1981 purchase by Leo Vodde when the room was known as Up the Street, the renaming as After Dark, and After Dark's description of Miller as Indiana's oldest working drag queen.
3. Pinionated Magazine (Fort Wayne Pride), November 2026, "45 Years in the Making" — the After Dark chronicle: the 1971 founding, the ownership changes, the merger with Babylon Nightclub, the million-dollar fundraising total, and the yearly Positive Resource Connection benefits.
4. Directory listings (OpenStreetMap-derived Allen County eating-and-drinking index; club directories) — After Dark/Babylon, 112 East Masterson Avenue, listed under owner Leo Vodde; Fort Wayne Pride, "Spotlight: After Dark & Babylon Nightclub."
5. FortWayne.com, "Our Best Bars" — Henry's described as gay-friendly, the general press's single such notation reached.