The Blazing Saddle is home to leather daddies, lesbians, cowboys, queens and queer elders who can remember a Des Moines before Pride

The Blazing Saddle is open 365 days a year, but a Thursday afternoon at the bar is very different from a Friday or Saturday night. The doors open at 2 p.m., and the bar quickly fills with men, most at retirement age or approaching it. They’ll drink a few beers, or a cup of coffee, and watch the news. At 3 p.m., Jeopardy! comes on, and it is nearly a contact sport. Everyone, including the bartenders, is engaged and yelling out answers at the various TVs hanging throughout the building.

Sitting at one end of the bar in his designated seat is Bob “Mongo” Eikleberry, founder and co-owner of the Blazing Saddle. He is wearing a button-down shirt with the American flag covering the front and back. His sleeves are cut off, and a pack of cigarettes rests in his front shirt pocket. When he opened the bar in 1983, Eikleberry considered naming it Albatross — “the bird that hangs ’round my neck,” he quipped. Instead, a friend suggested he pay tribute to the source of his nickname, Mongo: Alex Karras’s character in the 1974 Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles. He liked it, though Eikleberry has more of a taste for black patent leather than cowboy nubuck. 

The Saddle has hosted many raucous leather nights under Eikleberry’s watch, but it has also brought out his softer side. “Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, I’d cook from home and bring a big spread down here. Anyone can eat for free. It really meant something to me,” he recalled in our interview for my 2024 documentary series The Last American Gay Bar on OUTtv. “Mom used to get so mad at me: ‘Why don’t you come with your own family?’ And I said, ‘I’ve got a bigger family, Mother, and these people need something.’”

Behind the bar is Greg Chamberlain, who retired after 28 years as postmaster in Johnston, Iowa. He was a regular Saddle-goer in the early days, but would often get claustrophobic in the crowded building. He hopped behind the bar for some breathing room one night, and has been there ever since. Chamberlain bartends the day shift on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. 

At the other end of the bar, with a cup of coffee in his hand, is Bryan “Stinky” Smith. He has co-owned the Saddle with Eikleberry since 2011. “We will always be at our core a gay bar,” he assured me. “Owning a gay bar is less of a money-making [venture] than a stewardship.”

To the right of the bar is a painting of the East Village, with all the buildings — except the State Capitol — looking like log cabins. “That was painted before we had the bar. When we were renovating and making updates, we had an art teacher come in and add pink to the sky like it was sunrise,” Chamberlain explains. “We repainted the Capitol, so it looked more modern.” 

The sun has yet to go down on the Blazing Saddle, the oldest gay bar in Iowa to remain in continuous operation, and the center of central Iowa’s LGBTQ+ community. Capital City Pride, host of Des Moines’ PrideFest (June 8), celebrates its 25th anniversary this year; the org began right here on the Saddle’s barstools with conversations between Smith, Chamberlain, Steve Egbert and Brian “Beasley” Ohrberg. 

“Blazing Saddle is a community bar,” according to Chamberlain. “It’s also a community home base. Every organization comes through there, every org has had fundraisers through there.” 

There wasn’t a reliable place for LGBTQ+ people to gather socially for drinks, trivia, drag shows and Pride planning in the 1960s and ’70s. Gay bars tended to cater to gay men, often to the exclusion of lesbians, transgender people and straight people. The elder members of the Saddle community can remember well their weekends cruising the “gay loop” of Des Moines bars that bumped until 2:30 a.m. — not to mention the all-hours adult bookstores, bathhouses and cruising hotspots, one of which was Margo Frankel Park. The bacchanalia belied the fear; robberies, police stings and violence targeting gay men were not uncommon.

“There were two loops. There was the upper loop and the lower loop,” Chamberlain explained. “The upper loop was for drinking, drugs and hanging out. The lower loop was for pickups and cruising. If you go back closer to the late 1960s, there was just one loop that went around American Republic and Veterans Auditorium.”

Even with queer folks commuting in from around the state, the bar scene grew competitive. Three beloved gay bars were destroyed in fires regarded as suspicious. The businesses were almost certainly targeted for destruction by rival bar owners or the owners themselves, at least one of whom, Chuck Brooks, was eventually arrested for intent to distribute crystal meth. Brooks, a gay man himself, was also the chaotic personality behind bars like Corn Parlor, Boardwalk, Country Cove, City Disco and Barbell Athletic Club. 

Chamberlain was an undergrad at Iowa State University in the late ’70s. He and his friends used to meet at Dugan’s Deli in Campustown, he said. It was one of the few queer-friendly businesses that wasn’t a gay club.

“Dugan’s Deli became well known as a place to hang out. It was near Tork’s Pub, which had peanut shells on the floor. I swallowed a goldfish at that place,” he  said. “There was also Thumbs, which had bad pizza and cheap beer. Thumbs was a two-level band bar on Welch Avenue in Ames. It was gay-ish, but I only ever picked up anyone from Dugan’s.” 

Pride Incorporated had been hosting Pride celebrations in Des Moines for decades before Capital City Pride took over in 2001. Chamberlain has fond memories of those early events.

“The first Pride parade was in 1978, I think. I was still in college. There wasn’t much publicity because we were all scared to be seen on the news. It was small, improvised and volunteer-driven. Maybe 100 people showed up. Everyone lined up over by the Capitol, and we would walk to Nollen Plaza,” which is now called Cowles Commons. “Later we could change it up and walk to the Simon Estes Amphitheater.”

“Pride Incorporated used to meet right next door to the Blazing Saddle,” he said.

Before he founded the Saddle, Bob Eikleberry was drafted to serve in Vietnam, as was Gary Moore, who would go on to become a local LGBTQ+ activist and Blazing Saddle employee. Moore was originally from Dubuque and Eikleberry from Des Moines. Neither believed in war, but both loved their country. 

Moore said his first days in Des Moines included utilizing a glory hole in the bathroom of the Merle Hay bowling alley. Facing his service in December 1970, he turned to a local gay bar for comfort. The Malebox was new at the time, but burned down a year later.

“I stopped by during a snowstorm when hardly anybody was out and about. I was on holiday leave after infantry training at Fort Ord in Monterey Bay, California, and had my orders for Vietnam,” Moore recalled. “I was scared and trying to shut out any thought of where I would be in a few days. I went out hoping to meet someone — and I did.”

Moore and Eikleberry would make it home from the war, and finally met. Moore became a bartender at the Saddle while also taking on duties as decorator.

Like Chamberlain, “Stinky” Smith started working at the Saddle in the mid-1990s. Smith moved to Des Moines in the ’80s from the rural southwest Iowa town of Hamburg, which had a population of around 1,500 people. While studying to become a pharmacist at Drake University, he joined the Alpha Xi chapter of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

“Everybody came to me asking me for cardigans because I had like 20 of them. Back then, if you were going out to the bars, gay or straight, you dressed up. You put on your khaki pants, button-down shirt and nice shoes.”

When I asked if there were any gay groups at Drake, Smith said, “Are you crazy? No, we didn’t have anything like that. My photo was featured inside The Gay Rag once. I opened it up and sure enough there I was, front and center, with a beer in my hand. It made me anxious. If they didn’t know before, they knew now.”

The Gay Rag was a Des Moines-based queer newspaper published in the 1980s. Before The Gay Rag, photos were often forbidden inside gay bars; many patrons were desperate to keep family, employers and colleagues in the dark about their same-sex attractions. But Iowa overturned its sodomy law in 1978 — the same year anti-gay activist Anita Bryant was pied by a protester in Des Moines, a point of pride for many LGBTQ+ folks in the city — and it was becoming more common for people to live as openly gay across the U.S.

In October 1983, Eikleberry opened the Blazing Saddle in a former straight bar in the East Village, which at the time was mostly known for drug deals and army surplus. (Other gay bars operating at the time included Brass Garden — formerly Annie’s, now known simply as The Garden — and Le Cage on 6th Avenue, where Beechwood Lounge now stands.)

It was dingy. Eikleberry put metal bars on the windows to protect customers. The bar itself was held up with cinder blocks, and Eikleberry was the handyman for everything. He painted the exterior purply pink, and included two upside-down pink triangles on the bar’s sign — a reclaimed symbol of LGBTQ+ Pride that predates Gilbert Baker’s rainbow flag from 1978. The Saddle doesn’t charge a cover.

“When we opened the bar, we had to chase out the straights,” Eikleberry said. “It was a man’s bar, and that was by request of our main customers. It wasn’t until several years later that I finally said this place is for our sisters, too.”

Des Moines had several lesbian bars over the years, though most survived only briefly before closing. There was Dally’s, owned by Darrell Vreeland, and Diesel’s, owned by Ann Mathe. 

While Halloween could unite the queer community for costume parties once a year, it wasn’t until the AIDS crisis hit Iowa in the late 1980s that queer men and women truly came together. Underground hospices were set up in private homes around Des Moines, and women stepped up to help facilitate them. 

“Man, I lost a lot of friends. I kept three suits always clean ready to go to another funeral,” Eikleberry recalled. “I just got to the point where I’d become numb.” 

If Mongo was numb, he certainly wasn’t paralyzed. Near the peak of the AIDS epidemic, Eikleberry started the All Iowa AIDS Benefit, an annual variety show in Des Moines raising money for HIV/AIDS-related causes around the state. “It became the social event of the year,” according to Moore, who grappled with his own HIV diagnosis in the ’90s.

After so much loss, the Saddle community doesn’t take the wins for granted. In April 2009, Iowa became the third state to legalize same-sex marriage after the unanimous Iowa Supreme Court decision in Varnum v. Brien. Eikleberry immediately got himself ordained, and married 26 couples in rapid succession, gay and straight. The Saddle was a frequent wedding venue in the months and years after Varnum.

The bar eventually became a political hotspot, with candidate visits during caucus season. That wasn’t always the case.

“When this place opened, Reagan was president, and he was a tyrannical president of this country. He was coming down hard on us, but Iowa politicians were quietly tolerant,” Eikleberry said. 

Chamberlain rebukes the people in power today working to “split into factions” Iowa’s LGBTQ+ community and allies, and ban books on queer and trans people from schools. The Saddle maintains the motto, “We accept everyone as long as they accept and respect us.”

The purple paint and window bars came down during a 2000 renovation. Eligh Cade, a Marine vet and trans man on the Saddle’s security team, said it’s the safest place in the city on a Friday or Saturday night. “We are all on radios and we are in constant communication. If anyone gets out of line, they are out. We also have an emergency switch that is directly connected to the Des Moines Police Department, but we have never had to use it.”

Though they have a good relationship with DMPD, cops are a last resort, Smith said. During the racial justice protests of 2020, Saddle staff prepared backpacks of first aid supplies, and wound up treating teargassed protesters. 

Blazing Saddle employs a stable of drag queens — the Saddle Gurls — who stage dynamic shows five nights a week. Queens also host bingo, brunches and trivia nights.

“Holidays come up, people get very sad, they can’t see family, but you can come here,” Karma Kills told me for The Last American Gay Bar. “You’ll be accepted, you can hang out, do whatever, and the girls here, the cast here, the owners, the bartenders are just genuine people. They have regulars, but you can become a regular by just one conversation.”

I asked Eikleberry why he thinks so many gay bars have come and gone while the Blazing Saddle endured.

“If you don’t change and adapt, you won’t make it,” he responded. “I always put my community first and me second. After I am gone, this place will still be here.”

The Blazing Saddle is open seven days a week, 2 p.m.-2 a.m. Mon-Fri, noon-2 a.m. Sat & Sun. Find upcoming events at theblazingsaddle.com and @theblazingsaddle on Instagram.  

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Blazing Saddle events

Saddle Happy Hour, weekdays, 2-8 p.m.

The Saddle Gurl Show, Fridays & Saturdays, 11-11:55 p.m. 

Capital City PrideFest 2026, Friday-Sunday, June 12-14

The Last American Gay Bar Screening, Des Moines Art Center, Saturday, June 13, 11:30 a.m.

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Greg Chamberlain’s 2025 PrideFest speech

The longtime Saddle bartender and community organizer’s thoughts on Pride through the generations. Written for PrideFest 2025.

We love our queerness all year long, but Pride is a time when we see, experience and celebrate ourselves more loudly. That Pride isn’t gone, but rather complicated by current events this year. Let’s face it: “This year, Pride is scary.”

Shame was such a part of gay identity in the 1970s and ’80s. We had “roommates.” Now we have role models and openness about our gayness. Now we have husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. Now we choose our own pronouns.

The LGBTQ+ community went from hiding in the closet to marching in Gay Pride parades — from standing on the sidelines to standing together in protest and walking side by side in solidarity.

Baby boomers played a significant role in advancing the gay rights movement and changing societal attitudes toward homosexuality. They were the first to embrace a gay identity and push for social and legal change. They founded LGBTQ+ organizations and used activism and protests to change our public perception from “mental illness” to “legitimate human diversity.” Boomers witnessed the devastation of HIV firsthand, and they redefined how we grow older as proud LGBTQ+ individuals. They were Marsha P. Johnson, and they were Sylvia Rivera.

But then what happened? Generation X is what happened!

Generation X played a significant role in the evolution of Gay Pride, moving us from individual acceptance to a broader societal significance. They began to build supportive networks through youth groups and LGBTQ+ centers. Generation X found its voice and shed the shame that kept us in the closet. They stood up to bullying in the face of adversity and were galvanized with activism and a focus on rights. Generation X paved the way for the next generations of LGBTQ+ activism and progress toward greater acceptance and inclusion for all.

And now, our organizations, our bars and our activism are being led by millennials, who are driving greater acceptance and representation in mainstream society. By identifying as LGBTQ+, with proactive engagement and advocacy for our rights and increased visibility, millennials have fueled a more inclusive society and had a crucial role in changing societal attitudes.

And now, as we continue to pass the torch, Generation Z is also becoming a social force driving change, vocalizing expectations and actively shaping the movement and influencing the future.

I personally would like to thank each and every one of you for taking the reins and leading the way toward a community of solidarity and a family of self-respect! You are all Pride! You are the future!

The civil rights movement was seeking change for all people, as did the women’s movement and the gay rights movement. One thing they have in common is that collectively, they make the 14th Amendment — “Equal rights, under the law” — more fully recognized.

I wish you all a Happy Pride, and thank you all for being my family.

I would like to end with a quote from Carl Kemp: “Bigotry and prejudice end because gradually they become stupid. That is when the fear dies.”  

—Greg Chamberlain

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Kristian Day is a filmmaker, writer and host of the long-running radio show and podcast, Iowa Basement Tapes. Keep up with him on Instagram (@kristianday) or at kristianday.com. This article was originally published in Little Village’s June 2026 issue.