The Deadliest Fire to Hit New Orleans Gay Community in 1973, Remains Officially Unsolved

According to Week in weird, in June of 1973, gays and lesbians across the United States were celebrating the fourth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City. Gay Pride parades marched throughout major cities across the country. But meanwhile in New Orleans, the disorganized LGBT community made little effort to hold any official events. Sunday, June 24, marked the end of what little celebration the city witnessed. An all-you-can-drink beer bust was held at Upstairs Lounge, marking the close to pride weekend.

In the theater room, the small congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church held Sunday service. The gay and lesbian congregation had just recently relocated to the home of Reverend William R. Larson, yet the bar held significance as their “spiritual home.”

As the voices singing United We Stand wafted from the assembly, bartender Herbert Cooley continued pouring drinks for the dwindling crowd. Regular customers both young and old sat both at the bar and among the scattered tables around the room. An argument broke out in the afternoon, and Herbert ordered two men to leave–one of whom was a well-known hustler and troublemaker named David Dubose. In a rage, David stormed out of the bar, shouting, “I’ll burn them all out!”

A can of lighter fluid was purchased by an unidentified man at a nearby drugstore minutes later.

The tragic blaze at the Upstairs Lounge destroyed everything in its wake. (Times-Picayune/Landov)

Shortly after 7:00 PM, a man approached the front of the Upstairs. He opened the heavy steel entrance door and tossed in a Molotov cocktail. Before fleeing the scene, he slammed the door shut and padlocked it. The fire quietly smoldered between the two closed doors. As Luther opened the stairwell door, the influx of oxygen fed the flames. In seconds, a fireball engulfed the bar.

Panic swept through Upstairs Lounge as men and women scrambled to find an exit. Some hid beneath the white grand piano while others clamored at the windows. Douglas “Buddy” Rasmussen, bartender in the downstairs Jimani Lounge, hurried upstairs through a back door to find his partner Adam Fontenot.

More unidentified victims found piled together near a window. (Times-Picayune/Landov)

From the windows, the trapped crowd screamed and fought their way through the solid iron bars covering the openings, squeezing through the openings and leaping in a panicked heap on the street. As the flames crept higher, he cried out, “OH, GOD! NO!” His lifeless body stood burned in effigy poised in his final moments of escape. Sixteen minutes after the blaze engulfed the lounge, the New Orleans Fire Department extinguished the flames. The intense heat left bar stools twisted like pretzels. Victims were burned beyond recognition. The inferno left a death toll of 29 souls.

The aftermath of the Upstairs Lounge fire which claimed 29 lives. Reverend Larson’s charred body can be seen still left carelessly in the window. (Times-Picayune/Landov)

Thirteen bodies had been identified by the following day. Dental records were used to identify other victims. The three unidentified victims and unclaimed body of Ferris LeBlanc were buried in Holt Cemetery–a potter’s field. Churches throughout the city refused to allow services to be performed for the dead. St. Mark’s Community Center finally allowed a quiet service offered to a few hundred mourners on Sunday, July 1. Reverend Troy Perry, head of the MCC, flew to New Orleans from Los Angeles to give the sermon. His closing words spurred on the LGBT community:

“As long as one brother or sister in this world is oppressed, it is our problem. Names such as faggot, queer, fruit, and fairy are the language of the bully and the bigot—insensitive, stupid labels that will never put us down. Those human beings—our friends—who died so horribly, have dignity now. It does not matter what unknowledgeable people have stooped to say; our friends will always have respect because they are forever in our hearts. The memory of our love ones is so viable that I can almost feel their presence. If they could speak they would tell us to hold out heads up high.”