I have made mention previously, to some of the Illegal collectors, that my Grandfather (deceased '47) was an illegal club operator in and around Springfield, IL from the mid 30's until his death in '47 (heart attack).

My mother (born in '33) has some recollections of some of the activities around his business and during a recent visit she told me some more of those recollections.

One such tidbit was that there were several "competing" gaming operations in the Springfield area during that period. Some of the names she could recall were Lake Club, Orchid Lounge and Hide Away.

I started with The Gaming Table and found an entry for Orchid Lounge with an unknown location in a small key mold, but I do not have access to small key records.

There were entries for the Lake Club and Hide Away, but no IL connections.

Since my Grandfather's place used the T-mold, I decided to start with the Taylor Co. records, as recently made available by Gene and David. I looked for Orchid Lounge as a hot-stamp, or a delivered to location, but no luck.

Next I looked for Lake Club and on page 17 of the "L" pages, record or card # 270 I found an entry for a Harold Henderson, with chips being deliverd c/o Lake Club on Fox Road, Springfield Illinois.

Several colors of chips are listed with delivery dates in 1943 and I think 1942. The chips are hot-stamped HJH, I assume for Harold Henderson.

Based on this information, I then called my mother. We discussed the information on the card and she passed along this information:

The Lake Club was a well known and popular Night Club, located on the edge of town (Springfield, IL) near Lake Springfield. Their primary stock in trade was entertainment, dancing and drinking. They also had gaming, but it was only offered on a sporadic basis, as the owner did not enjoy a solid relationship with County law enforcement.

They for sure offered craps and the club was open until about 1949. My mother also recalls the owner, Harold Henderson by name.

Although it would be nice to have confirmation from another source, based on what my mother recalls, the Lake Club had gaming and the Taylor Co. records indicate that gaming chips were delivered to the Lake Club.

Is this enough to surmise that the Lake Club chips were ordered for illegal gaming, as opposed to a personal home poker set?

Does anyone have any of the Lake Club chips, "HJH"?

Are there other questions, on this subject that I should be asking my mother?

Jim