General
Blue Max promotes Leather-Levi traditions throughout the Greater St. Louis area and offers educational, social, and charitable activities serving the LGBT+ community.
Blue Max sponsors club nights and events monthly and actively works with other St. Louis LGBT organizations, bars, and venues to promote the leather community.
Events often have a leather, fetish, kink, or BDSM theme. The club assists with various charitable causes in the area that assist families affected by HIV/AIDS.
All Blue Max members promote, manage, and further the goals and activities of the club. Anyone is invited to attend meetings, club nights, or any event to learn more of have fun.
Blue Max Cycle Club, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations that is eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contribution.
History
The club was founded in 1975 by a group led by Jerry Wickham and later reorganized by Bob Garrett. The original home bar was the Red Bull in East St. Louis, Illinois. In 1978 the home bar was the Mine Shaft (downstairs at Faces in East St. Louis) followed by Clementines in St. Louis in 1980 and the Outpost, in St. Louis (later the upstairs bar was called the St. Louis Eagle) in 1993 (The Outpost/Eagle closed in December 1999 but reopened six months later under new management as the Eagle in Exile.) JJ’s Clubhouse, located in the Grove Neighborhood of Saint Louis, was Blue Max’s home bar until the bar closed in 2021. Now Blue Max patronizes several GLBTQ+ bars within the St. Louis Area.
In the early years, Blue Max joined other clubs in holding joint runs. Those clubs included Gateway M.C., Spirits of St. Louis, and Bacchus. In mid-1982, each club began holding individual runs. In 1992, Blue Max became the first St. Louis leather club to admit women.
Blue Max has always been committed to charitable causes. Blue Max focuses on building relationships in the Leather and LGBT communities while providing charitable and educational resources for the community.
Blue Max is a proud member of the Mid-America Conference of Clubs, an organization devoted to the promotion and coordination of the leather clubs in the central part of the U.S.
