71 Years, Still Changing

Mary’s Club / Kit Kat Club
Old Town
Portland, Oregon
June 20, 2026

A sign mounted high above the entrance reads:

FOR 71 YEARS.

That was what made me stop.

Not because of what the sign advertised, but because seventy-one years is a long time for any Portland institution.

The sign prompted a simple question:

Who was Mary?

The answer led me into a history I knew very little about.

Founded in 1954, Mary’s Club became one of Portland’s longest-running adult entertainment institutions. The club owes its name to Mary Durst, who acquired the business through a divorce settlement and operated it before selling it to Roy Keller in 1954. The business would remain in the Keller family for decades, eventually passing to Roy’s daughter, Vicki Keller, and her daughters.

Standing outside the building, however, I found myself thinking less about ownership and more about time.

Seventy-one years is long enough for generations of people to pass through a place.

For decades, dancers, performers, staff, owners, and patrons moved through these doors. Some may have stayed for years. Others only briefly. Most left little trace behind.

Their stories rarely appear in history books. Yet collectively they helped shape a small but enduring part of Portland’s cultural landscape.

The longer I thought about that sign, the more it seemed to represent something beyond the age of a business.

Longevity means change.

A place that survives for seventy-one years does not remain frozen in the era in which it was founded. The city changes. The neighborhood changes. The people change.

So do the questions they ask.

That realization led me to another chapter in Portland’s adult entertainment history.

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On July 11, 2020, as Portland grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide racial justice protests following the death of George Floyd, dancers and entertainers marched through downtown Portland calling attention to discrimination within the industry.

Protesters carried handmade signs reading “We Won’t Perform Without Reform,” “Black Butts Matter,” and “No Justice, No Booty.”

Organizers spoke about unequal treatment experienced by Black dancers, including hiring practices, scheduling, and workplace policies. Some described being limited to less profitable shifts while white dancers were allegedly given greater access to higher-earning opportunities.

What struck me most was not the protest itself, but what it represented.

The women who marched in 2020 were publicly raising questions about representation, opportunity, and workplace treatment. Their concerns reflected their own time, just as earlier generations navigated the realities of theirs.

The march eventually ended at the Kit Kat Club on SW Ankeny St.

Several years later, I walked past the building myself.

Its weathered brick exterior, arched windows, and hanging sign felt very different from Mary’s Club a few blocks away. Yet both belonged to a landscape shaped by generations of women whose lives intersected with Portland’s adult entertainment industry.

History often survives through places.

The women who marched in 2020 eventually went home. The signs were put away. The crowds dispersed.

But the buildings remain.

Standing outside Mary’s Club, I found myself thinking about the contrast between the sign and the march.

One celebrated seventy-one years of history.

The other reminded me that history does not stand still.

The story of Portland’s dancers is not only something found in old photographs, fading signs, or surviving buildings.

It is still being written.