Mary's Club is the oldest strip club in Portland, Oregon, and among the oldest in the United States. In 1954, Roy Keller bought the business from Mary Duerst Hemming, who owned and operated Mary's as a piano bar beginning in the 1930s.
- Venue
- Mary's Club
- Address
- 503 W Burnside St
- Town
- Portland, US
Mary's Club is the oldest strip club in Portland, Oregon, and among the oldest in the United States. In 1954, Roy Keller bought the business from Mary Duerst Hemming, who owned and operated Mary's as a piano bar beginning in the 1930s. Keller initially hired go-go dancers as entertainment during the piano player's breaks, later hiring them full-time because of their popularity. Topless dancers wearing pasties were introduced in 1955. The club also featured comics, musicians, singers and other acts. All-nude dancing began in 1985, after a judicial ruling against City of Portland ordinances banning it in venues which served alcohol. Former strippers include Courtney Love and Christine Jorgensen, although the club is known for its longtime dancers who are loyal to the family business. Since Keller's death in 2006, Mary's Club has been owned and operated by his daughter Vicki. A Portland institution, it has been included in several strip-club "best of" lists and its neon sign is considered a landmark. The club has appeared in several films, including Bongwater (1997) and Brainsmasher... A Love Story (1993). An elevated view of the first location of Mary's appears in a scene of The Hunted (2013 film) when actor Tommy Lee Jones gazes out the police station window. The club has also been included in walking tours of the city. Mary's Club, known as "Portland's first topless", is the oldest strip club in Portland. Portland shipyard foreman Roy Keller bought the club in 1954 for about $25,000 from Mary Duerst Hemming, who was awarded the piano bar (which was popular with sailors) in a divorce settlement and operated the business "for more than 20 years" beginning in the 1930s. According to The Seattle Times, Keller initially hired go-go dancers to entertain the crowd during the piano player's breaks. Due to the dancers' popularity, Keller hired them full-time, laid off the piano player and introduced "pasties-clad topless dancers" in 1955. That year, two city-council members