Thousands rumble by it every day, a nondescript building near the northeast corner of Main Avenue and Speedway.
Few know its history, or the fact that it was once owned by the man who started up the Beau Brummell Club, an exclusive men's club for Tucson's prominent blacks.
The man was Duke Shaw and the building was Duke's Drive-Inn, now the gathering place for the club he and others started back in 1936.
"He was the type of person who wanted something better for the black man," says Shaw's daughter, Gail Shaw.
So exclusive was the membership, then held to 15, that potential members' wives were also scrutinized.
"Because I was a bachelor, they kept me out for a while," says attorney Rubin Salter, a member since the mid-'60s.
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Besides professionals, the club also had a few members in service — as in butlers.
"Having been around rich and educated people, they were also leaders in the social life," says Salter.
For a time, he adds, dinner parties were held in each other's homes on Wednesday nights. "That was the maids' and butlers' nights off," says Salter.
The club also held an annual formal dance at the old Blue Moon ballroom.
"I'm told it was the best between St. Louis and San Francisco," says Salter. "It was something to get an invitation to that ball."
Then there were the family picnics, also held once a year, says Gail Shaw. "We'd go to Mount Lemmon or Sabino Canyon, have midnight cookouts."
Duke Shaw, besides being a Beau Brummell, was also something of an entrepreneur, owning a dry-cleaning plant as well as the drive-in.
"We would eat there all the time. You could sit in your car and also at the counter. It also had a number of booths," says Cress Lander.
The drive-in was built around 1941. A few years later, Shaw built a 10-unit motel just to the south, named for his wife, Anne.
"The main reason my father chose to do that was entertainers would come here. They couldn't stay where they were entertaining," says Gail Shaw.
With the vestiges of Jim Crow still hanging on, Beau Brummell members also hosted other blacks, including members of the Cleveland Indians, in town for spring training, in their homes, says Salter.
In a little booth between the drive-in and the motel, a black disc jockey would spin records broadcast on radio, says Salter.
In 1954, the drive-in was expanded and the Beau Brummell Club moved into a portion of the building.
Beau Brummell member Al Fowler leased the drive-in after Duke Shaw suffered a stroke in the early '60s, says Gail Shaw.
Meanwhile, the motel limped along until 1970, a victim of the interstate.
"Main Avenue used to be like the freeway. When I-10 went in, we went broke," says Gail Shaw.
Al Fowler also shut down the drive-in in the 1970s, with the Beau Brummell Club taking over the entire facility.
The club, which now has 18 members, still holds a dance every year, says Salter. It also sponsors an annual charity golf tournament known as the Ghetto Open.
"This is our 13th year," says Salter, adding that 160 turned out last year.
A few weeks ago, the motel was leveled and plans are in the works to develop the entire block, says Salter.
He knows someday the club will have to move. But for now its members will continue to meet at the old Duke's Drive- Inn — to reminisce and perhaps lift a glass to what once was.
"This is a history we want people to know about," says Salter.
