The Venues

The rooms where it happened. Some are gone; some still stand. We begin with the places at the heart of the story — the Bay Area ballrooms and the saloon in the Nevada desert where it all started — and widen outward as the archive grows.

Avalon Ballroom

San Francisco, CA

The Avalon stood on the upper floors of a 1911 building at 1268 Sutter Street in Polk Gulch.

California Hall

San Francisco, CA

California Hall, at 625 Polk Street in San Francisco, was built in 1912 as "Das Deutsche Haus" (The German House), designed by Frederick H.

The Cow Palace is a large indoor arena on the San Francisco–Daly City line, opened in 1941 and long used for livestock expositions, sports, and large-

Devonshire Downs

Devonshire Downs began life in 1946 as a harness-racing track on the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley, at the corner of Devonshire Street and

Family Dog on the Great Highway

San Francisco, CA

Chet Helms's Family Dog operation relocated to a hall at 660 Great Highway, on the ocean side of San Francisco, after losing the Avalon Ballroom's lea

Fillmore Auditorium

San Francisco, CA

The building at 1805 Geary Boulevard long predates the music that made it legendary.

San Francisco, CA

The room began as a swing-era dance palace — later the Carousel Ballroom — occupying the upstairs floor of a corner building at Market Street and Sout

Longshoreman's Hall

San Francisco, CA

Longshoreman's Hall, at 400 North Point Street near Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, was built at the end of the 1950s as the meeting hall of the I

Monterey County Fairgrounds

The Monterey County Fairgrounds sits on roughly twenty-two acres in Monterey, California, built in 1936.

Oakland Auditorium

Opened April 30, 1915, the Oakland Auditorium (originally the Oakland Civic Auditorium) is a Beaux-Arts civic landmark built 1913–1915 on the shore of

Piedmont Park is Atlanta's central public park, 189 acres laid out in the 1900s on the grounds of two former expositions.

Virginia City, NV

High on the flank of Mount Davidson, in the silver-mining town the Comstock Lode built and then half-abandoned, the Red Dog Saloon occupies a three-st

Straight Theater

San Francisco, CA

The Straight Theater was a former movie house at 1702 Haight Street, in the heart of the Haight-Ashbury, that neighborhood residents and artists conve