7. Plenty of BAD BEHAVIOR has taken place at Chicago bars. Al Capone shot and killed rival "Ragtime Joe" Howard at Hymie Jacobs' bar on South Wabash in 1924. Attorney W.W. O'Brien, who helped inspire the character Billy Flynn in the play and movie "Chicago," was shot in 1921 at Ryan & Novak's saloon on South State but refused to name his attacker. He won plenty of business from mobsters after that.
In 1903, a saloon owner allowed his establishment at Dearborn and Randolph streets to be used as a temporary morgue after the Iroquois Theater fire. The barkeep was caught stealing about $200 from a body.
8. In 1941, the Ratcliffe family threw a party at its Rogers Park bar, the Ranger Inn, for a relative who was going into the Army. That GI left his civilian HAT at the bar, saying he would reclaim it when he was out of the service.
For the next four years, more than 400 people hung their hats there as they went off to war. When peace came, the bar held a hat-reclaiming party. Those that went unclaimed were disposed of at a bonfire. The American Legion held a memorial service for three hat owners who never returned from the fighting.
--DaCooy
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