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| January 1973 Vector Ad |
Ritch Street Health Club was a popular 1960s and 1970s bathhouse located at 330 Ritch Street in the SOMA neighborhood of San Francisco. It opened in the fall of 1965 by gay community leader Rick Stokes, and his business partner/lover who had been together since 1960, David Clayton (d. 1995). Stokes ended up going to law school a year after he opened the baths to become a lawyer to gain more access to power as a gay businessman. As part of his growing involvement in political power by 1971 he had been named by the Family Services Agency of San Francisco as a member of the board of directors. One of the first out homosexuals appointed to a city public position.
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| January 1975 Vector |
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| March 1975 Vector |
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| Ad from April 1972 Vector |
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| May 1972 Ad from Vector |
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| June/July 1972 California Scene Ad |
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| September 1972 Vector Ad |
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| September 1974 Vector |
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| October 1972 Vector Ad |
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| Ad from November 1971 Vector |
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| November 1974 Vector |
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| Ad from December 1971 Vector |
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| December 1974 Vector |
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| Ad from April/May 1972 California Scene |
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| Ad for Ritch Street Baths from April 1969 Vector |
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| December 1972/January 1973 California Scene Ad |
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| February 1975 Vector |
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| Ad from January 1972 California Scene |
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| January 1976 Vector |
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| Photo from inside Ritch Street from June/July California Scene |
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| June 1972 Ad from Vector |
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| October 1974 In Touch |
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| December 1973 Vector Ad |
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| Ad for Ritch Street Baths from August 1967 Vector |
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| June 1974 ad for the restaurant inside Ritch Street Baths |
The club was hit with an arson fire in 1977 as part of a rash of bathhouse fires that swept San Francisco in 1977 - 1978. With the place heavily damaged Stokes and his original investors had sold it to the national Club Baths Chain. It closed down during the San Francisco bathhouse crisis in 1984. Here is how the
location looks today
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