The Back Door, Madison’s first openly gay bar, located at 46 N. Park Street. Opened in 1972 by Rodney Scheel, it boldly claimed its name—and its identity—at a time when few LGBTQ spaces could do so openly.
More than a nightlife venue, The Back Door was a community hearth—evolving through phases as a bar, restaurant, piano bar, dance club, and refuge for recently liberated queer people and their allies. Patrons entered through its literal "back door," a choice shaped by necessity as much as defiance—offering welcome inside, but still navigating hostility outside.
In 1973, Scheel held a modest employee-and-customer appreciation picnic in Brittingham Park. That gesture blossomed into the MAGIC Picnic by 1977, a city-wide LGBTQ fundraiser under the banner of MAGIC (Madison Area Gay Interim Committee). It became—over decades—a major summer gathering and a pillar of queer visibility in Madison.
