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 business was founded by Henry Beaumont and his wife, Helen. It was incorporated in 1920. The name 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 private 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. The club also constructed tennis courts and hosted two amateur tournaments that same year.

The Beaumont's lost the business in the stock market crash of 1929.

In the 1930s the club was renamed the Blue Crystal and took on an even shadier reputation. Dixie Coffee founder Gus Jebeles purchased the business and brought back the "Linger Longer" name while advertising the "largest steaks in town". He bought the Birmingham Barons in 1944 and frequently hosted friends at the restaurant.

In 1968 the building, by then 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

• "Linger Longer to Hold Net Tourney" (August 15, 1926) The Birmingham News
• 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.