Commerce
The Chain O'Lakes is home to hundreds of businesses. Businesses on the Chain include marinas, boat vendors, resorts, campgrounds, restaurants and bars. Among the most famous of these are Blarney Island bar on Grass Lake and the Mineola resort on Fox Lake.
Blarney Island is a large bar on Grass Lake that is only accessible by boat. The bar is built about a mile from shore on a series of pilings embedded in the shallow lake bed of Grass Lake. Although many facts about the establishment have been lost with time, local legend has it that Blarney Island evolved from a poker bet between Jack O'Connor and Shorty Shobin. In the very early 20th century, Jack and Shorty were rival businessmen on the Chain operating lotus bed tours only a hundred yards apart. The competition between the two came to a head one evening during a poker game in which each man bet his business. Ultimately, Shorty Shobin lost the hand and his business, at which point he got up from the table and entered the backroom of the bar where he took his own life. Sometime later, after Jack O'Connor lost his establishment to a fire, he used Shorty's location to form Blarney Island (as it was known by 1923.) The bar began a boat shuttle service to the island in 1972, started hosting live music in 1975 and started its famous boat races in 1978. The bar has continued to grow its business throughout the years and totes the slogan "A Mile Away from Reality" reflecting both its location and its mentality. Blarney Island embodies the overall free party attitude present throughout the Chain and has become a staple of the region.
Another well known business on the Chain is the stately Mineola Resort. The Mineola Hotel was built in 1894 by Chicago businessmen and has 100 rooms. It is the largest wooden structure in Illinois and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The resort was popular with the gangsters of the 1920s and the Chicago Tribune stated that the Mineola was "probably the most vicious resort" in the area. The Mineola still displays Al Capone's hat in a glass case in the lounge of the hotel. Today, the Mineola continues to operate as a restaurant and banquet facility while illuminating the area's past as a resort town.
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Famous quotes containing the word commerce:
“It was you that broke the new wood,
Now is a time for carving.
We have one sap and one root—
Let there be commerce between us.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Here, the churches seemed to shrink away into eroding corners. They seem to have ceased to be essential parts of American life. They no longer give life. It is the huge buildings of commerce and trade which now align the people to attention. These in their massive manner of steel and stone say, Come unto me all ye who labour, and we will give you work.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)
“Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)