Our town hosted the country’s first gay rights organization, its first Pride Parade, and much more. Indeed, Chicago has played a huge role in LGBT history in America. Chicago gay neighborhood history stretches back over a century though. It was the first such designation in American history. Daley designated it the city’s official gay neighborhood. Chicago’s Boystown neighborhood made history in 1997 when Mayor Richard M. I started thinking about how Chicago being the “City of Neighborhoods” has intersected with the city’s LGBT history.