Club Baths was a chain of

gay bathhouse A gay bathhouse, also known as a gay sauna or a gay steambath (uncommonly known as a gay spa), is a commercial space for gay, bisexual, and other men to have sex with men. In gay slang, a bathhouse may be called just "the baths", "the sauna", ...

s in the United States and Canada with particular prominence from the 1960s through the 1990s. At its peak it included 42 bathhouses: Akron, Atlanta, Atlantic City, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Camden NJ, Chicago, Cleveland (two locations), Columbus Ohio, Dallas, Dayton, Detroit, Hartford, Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Missouri, Key West, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis ("opening soon"), New Haven ("opening soon"), New York, Newark, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Providence, St. Louis, San Francisco, Tampa, Toledo, Ohio, Washington, DC, London Ontario, and Toronto. The chain claimed to have at least 500,000 members. Most of the bathhouses were closed in the 1990s either by government agencies or a changing market after charges were made that it contributed to the spread of AIDS. The Club was founded in 1965 by John W. Campbell (generally known as "Jack") (born 1932) and two other investors who paid $15,000 to buy a closed Finnish bath house in Cleveland, Ohio. Campbell wanted to provide cleaner, brighter amenities which were a contrast to the dark, dirty environment that existed previously. Campbell, a former president of the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

Young Democrats and a member of the Cleveland Mattachine Society, was active in gay politics and was on the Board of the

National Gay Task Force The National LGBTQ Task Force is an American social justice advocacy non-profit organizing the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Also known as The Task Force, the organization supports ac ...

. At one point while encountering

Troy Perry Troy Deroy Perry Jr (born July 27, 1940) is the founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, with a ministry with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities, in Los Angeles on October 6, 1968. Early life Troy Perry is the eldest o ...

, founder of the

Metropolitan Community Church The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), also known as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), is an international LGBT-affirming mainline Protestant Christian denomination. There are 222 member congregations in 3 ...

, Perry was said to have told him "we have a hundred churches and a total of 30,000 members." Campbell replied, "Well, although we only have thirty churches, we have 300,000 members." Campbell would be active in the fight against the

Save Our Children Save Our Children, Inc. was an American political coalition formed in 1977 in Miami, Florida, to overturn a recently legislated county ordinance that banned discrimination in areas of housing, employment, and public accommodation based on sexua ...

campaign, headed by Anita Bryant in the late 1970s. The facility in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

, Ontario, was one of four bathhouses raided on February 5, 1981, in a police action known as

Operation Soap Operation Soap was a raid by the Metropolitan Toronto Police against four gay bathhouses in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which took place on February 5, 1981. Just less than three hundred men were arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canada since the ...

. Bathhouses that today claim a Club Baths heritage include the CBC Resorts Club Body Center which has bathhouses in

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, and

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

. and The Clubs which has facilities in Cleveland, Columbus, Fort Lauderdale, Florida,

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

, Houston, Texas,

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Mari ...

, Orlando, Florida, and

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

References

{{reflist Gay bathhouses in the United States Culture of Cleveland LGBT culture in Toronto Gay culture in Canada Gay history