Linger Longer Lodge
The Linger Longer Lodge was a private social club located in a rock house on Shades Crest Road at the intersection of Berry Road and Grace Way. The name of the establishment may have been inspired by the 1893 song "Linger Longer, Loo" by Sidney Jones and Willie Younge, popularized in the Gaiety Burlesque stage musical "Don Juan".
During Prohibition the club was known as a discreet spot to enjoy a drink and games of chance on the sly. Because of this, the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross there in March 1926, one of their few actions against a white, Protestant establishment at the time. In the 1930s the club was renamed the Blue Crystal and took on an even shadier reputation, one that was slightly ameliorated by the habit of Birmingham Barons owner Gus Jebeles of inviting friends there for the "largest steaks in town".
In 1968 the building, used most recently as a private residence, was demolished because it lay precisely in the center of a 90-foot deep cut through Shades Mountain required for the construction of I-65.
References
- Spotswood, Frances (January --, 1968) "Linger Longer Lodge waiting for wrecker." The Birmingham News
- Summe, Sheryl Spradling. (2001). Homewood: The Life of a City. Homewood, AL: Friends of the Homewood Public Library.
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