I like to think I know a little bit about a lot of this city. But I recently discovered something of which I knew nothing: Club Reno — or the Reno Lounge, as it was referred to in 1952's U.S.A. Confidential, a tabloid-scented paperback that sneered at Dallas' "queers" and "queens," "fairies" and "middle-class deviates."

I first learned of the former Club Reno — "the first gay bar in all of Texas," according to Karen Wisely's University of North Texas master of arts thesis — from the bronzed narrative that will appear on a historical marker set to be planted 7 p.m. Wednesday in front of another iconic gay bar: JR's Bar & Grill on Cedar Springs Road in Oak Lawn. The unveiling, years in the making, is, well, a landmark moment. It will make Dallas the first city in the state with an official Texas Historical Commission subject marker acknowledging a longstanding gay and lesbian community.

"Dallas gets criticized — fairly, perhaps — for not appreciating or recognizing its history. All of it," said Mark Doty, Dallas City Hall's chief historic preservation officer. "But this is an example where Dallas is actually on the forefront of something, for once."

Some 400 state-sanctioned historical markers scattered across the area, according to Dallas County. Most have been planted in front of old buildings where Something Important Happened a few forevers ago or in cemeteries where Someone Sort of Important During the Way, Way Back was buried. At least 10 of those markers contain the words "log cabin." For a relatively new city, Dallas has a lot of ancient history commemorated in bronze.

In 1991, when this photo was taken, the crossroads of Dallas' gayborhood was the intersection of Cedar Springs Road and Throckmorton, where Crossroads Market and Union Jack were located. (1991 File Photo / Staff)

But in 2016 Dwayne Jones, a former Preservation Dallas executive director now in Galveston, thought it time to tell the "undertold story" of Dallas' LGBT community. He reached out to Doty and Robert Emery and Sam Childers of the Dallas Way, keepers of this city's LGBT history, who penned the necessary narrative, submitted the paperwork and raised the money for the marker.

For most of us, I imagine, this city's LGBT history begins and ends in Oak Lawn, along Cedar Springs, where people march in parades and in protests. We know it as the gayborhood, or what's left of it — the Resource Center, JR's, Sue Ellen's, Station 4 and the Round-Up Saloon. For decades it has been a place where men and women gather to celebrate when the news is good and come for help when things get bad.

Cedar Springs at Throckmorton Street, where JR's sits, has always been especially important. The intersection had been known as The Crossroads since the late 1960s, but its legacy was forever cemented in 1980 with the opening of the namesake market there that became the community's bookstore and meeting place.

By putting the marker there, Emery said, "we hope it can instill some pride in young people — in all people, gay and non-gay, to know the city in which they live has bravely been forward in standing up for decades. The young generation handed all of these rights, we hope they will stop and enjoy reflecting on the brave people who chose to identify as early as the 1950s," when gay men were depicted in this very newspaper as "sex perverts" out "corrupting the morals of dozens of Dallas teenagers."

To get the marker, Childers wrote about how in the 1930s, gay men would meet in the shadow of the Magnolia Petroleum Building at Commerce and Akard streets — "Maggie's Corner," as it was known. In 1947, Club Reno opened nearby at 316 S. Ervay St., on Wood Street just across from what is now the central library.

For years, downtown was filled with wink-and-nod clubs because it was illegal to be gay in Dallas. Childers wrote about how in 1964 alone, the Dallas Police Department's Special Services Bureau arrested 460 people for being "perverts."

Over time, the gay community found a home out in the open along Cedar Springs — amid the "bohemian atmosphere and picturesque architecture," described on the historic marker.

Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall walked in the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade on Sept. 17, as it made its way down Cedar Springs. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

These days, the gayborhood is beginning to disappear, on the verge of becoming a long stretch of big-box apartments and chain eateries dotting Cedar Springs Road. The old familiars have disappeared, among them the Crossroads Market, Union Jack and The Bronx — pushed out by rising rents.

It is happening all over: "Neighborhoods associated with the LGBT community are now disappearing," said Jones. "They have lost their connections, which isn't a bad thing, just an indication of the times — of urban development that has changed the fabric, the businesses, the people who live there."

And what had been Club Reno is now a parking lot, a shortcut I use on my walk from the office on Commerce Street to Dallas City Hall — where at least once a week I see Doty, the guy who works to save Dallas history for all of us.

For Doty, this one was personal: He grew up in Abilene and moved to Dallas from South Carolina in 2003, when Crossroads Market was still open. And there, he told me this week, he found a welcoming community where he could be himself — "without worrying what other people thought," he said.

But now that community is disappearing. "And all we have left are our stories," Doty said. "This marker is one way to commemorate that in a physical way."

And a permanent one, too, out in the open.

Complete text of the historical marker:

THE CROSSROADS

DESPITE DALLAS'S REPUTATION AS ONE OF THE STATE'S MORE CONSERVATIVE CITIES, ITS LGBTQ (LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER, QUEER) COMMUNITY WAS AMONG THE FIRST IN TEXAS TO ORGANIZE POLITICALLY AND SOCIALLY. IN 1947, THE CITY BECAME HOME TO ONE OF THE FIRST GAY BARS IN TEXAS, CLUB RENO, AND IN 1972 WAS THE SITE OF THE FIRST GAY PRIDE PARADE IN TEXAS. IN 1980, THE PRIDE PARADE MOVED FROM DOWNTOWN TO CEDAR SPRINGS ROAD.

THE AREA SURROUNDING THE INTERSECTION OF THROCKMORTON STREET AND CEDAR SPRINGS ROAD HAS BEEN CONSIDERED THE CENTER OF THE DALLAS LGBTQ COMMUNITY SINCE THE EARLY 1970s AND IS KNOWN AS "THE GAY CROSSROADS" OR "THE CROSSROADS." IN THE LATE 1960s AND EARLY 1970s, THE CROSSROADS WAS A MAGNET FOR THE CITY'S COUNTERCULTURE MOVEMENTS. GAYS AND LESBIANS BEGAN MOVING TO THE AREA, DRAWN TO ITS BOHEMIAN IMAGE AND PICTURESQUE ARCHITECTURE. MORE GAY-OWNED BUSINESSES AND BARS FOLLOWED, AND BY THE END OF THE 1970s, THE MAJORITY OF BUSINESSES IN THE AREA CATERED TO THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY. WITH THE ONSLAUGHT OF THE AIDS CRISIS IN THE 1980s, THE CROSSROADS BECAME NOT ONLY AN ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT, BUT ALSO A CENTER FOR POLITICAL ACTIVISM, SOCIAL SERVICES AND MEDICAL TESTING.

AS THE HISTORIC HEART OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY OF DALLAS, THE CROSSROADS REMAINS THE LOCATION OF THE OLDEST GAY BUSINESSES IN THE CITY AND AS THE PRIMARY GATHERING POINT FOR LGBTQ POLITICAL AND SOCIAL EVENTS, INCLUDING THE ALAN ROSS FREEDOM PARADE. THE CROSSROADS CONTINUES TO SERVE THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND THE CITY OF DALLAS AS A SYMBOL OF SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ACTION AMONG THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY.