Editor’s note: The Courier & Press and The Gleaner are marking Black History Month with a collection of stories about people, places and events from local Black history.
EVANSVILLE — The Paradise Dance Hall is one of the only buildings still remaining of what used to be a busy business district in Baptisttown.
The building at 253 Lincoln Ave. is no longer a Black-owned bar, but was sold by the owner George H. Clemmons to the Community Action Program of Evansville for its childcare center in the late 1990s after the establishment was wrapped up in drug charges.
The childcare center still offers an ode to the buildings former tenant with its slogan: “A Child’s Paradise.”
For more than 40 years, the nightclub was run by Clemmons who took over in the mid 1950s from his father, George W. Clemmons, who started the business, according to Courier & Press archives.
Archives show the nightclub referred to by different Paradise variations, Paradise Club and Club Paradise.
The club would bring in musical acts, including Jimmy McGriff. Clemmons told the Courier & Press in 1981 that acts were playing in his bar before they made it big.