Yet others rose to take the old bars' places. With many of the businesses long gone and even the buildings they once occupied demolished or destroyed, Tenpenny said there's a worry the stories will be lost.

Tenpenny is working with the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay to establish a Northeast Wisconsin LGBTQ History Archive to collect some of the history project's memorabilia from gay bars and clubs, like t-shirts and detailed histories of various LGBTQ bars and support groups that were active over recent decades. In 1980, the Green Bay Press-Gazette published a week-long series, 'Gay in Green Bay,' that called bars like The Manhole a “linchpin, a central place where its members can exist in the open without the fear of retribution from the straight world.” In these bars, LGBTQ people found their collective voice on issues such as equal rights, the AIDS epidemic, and support for people struggling with suicide and substance abuse.