The Claims:
For $68, you can go on a 5-hour ghost hunt at the Old Baraboo Inn. I’m not going to talk/write about the ghosts. Believe what you want to believe. But part of their story falls into gangster territory. On their website, they say:
“The Old Baraboo Inn, located just across the street from a railroad depot that offered easy access to the Windy City, was built as a boarding house back in 1864. As the years passed, it also operated as a honky-tonk bar and a brothel and was known as a favorite dive bar for vacationing gangsters, like Capone, who has a documented history with the tavern. Capone had a summer vacation ‘hideout’ near Couderay, Wisconsin, and it’s believed that he passed through Baraboo during his trips to the North Woods and dropped in at the Old Baraboo Inn.”
A few things jump out even before we dig deeper. We covered the Couderay story before and know that is false or at least an exaggeration. But then… Is it “believed” Capone passed through, or does he have “a documented history” with the place? These are very different claims. Also, the date of construction is wrong – it was built in 1879, not 1864. That’s a 15 year gap!
Hauntedhouse-dot-com repeats some of this, saying it still has its 1864 “Victorian charm.” They say that during Prohibition the place was a speakeasy and “there was a Mob-run brothel and gaming opportunities offered as well.” Of course, “Al Capone loved this place; as one of the hideaways he loved to frequent and take a rest from his line of work.” They say Capone’s ghost has shown up at the bar and is quite friendly. Then a bigger claim, “Being a Mob-run establishment, there was the required killing area for those who broke the rules established in The Baraboo Speak-Easy; mostly carried out by a sadist who loved his job. In the case of The Baraboo Inn, the killing and torture area was down in the basement. There is an execution pole down in the basement that still has the bullet holes where victims were executed after having their legs broken and suffering other painful injuries. Customers who couldn’t pay their gaming debts, tried to cheat, romanced the wrong waitress or showgirl, or were guilty of some other offense were the ones who suffered and died there. The Mob enforcers in general, assigned to each Speak-Easy were not known for their forgiving nature. They knew their orders, and exceptions were not made. The offenders were handed over to the executioner, if the enforcers didn’t do it themselves.”
There is no such thing as “a required killing area” in mob-run businesses. People in debt to the mob were rarely killed. Rarely! Dead people don’t pay their debts. And who would these gamblers be? Local guys. The police wouldn’t care if someone local was murdered or disappeared? Hardly. Mob guys were running this place? Actively? Like always on site? Sounds unlikely.
The Documented History:
Thankfully for me, the Baraboo Public Library has on its website a thorough history of several properties in town, including the building at 133-135 Walnut Street. The document does not have a name on it, so I don’t know the person or people that did the work – if it was you, let me know, because you deserve credit for this masterpiece.
I have added more detail where possible, primarily from newspaper articles.
The foundation of the new Bender Hotel was completed in April of 1879. George Bender was already known locally, having established his first saloon in Baraboo about 1859. The Hotel is sometimes credited to him, but was really his wie Anna’s doing – George had died in 1874. The plans called for the hotel to be two stories high and were intended to be a saloon and a hotel with a commodious billiard hall in the south end. It was announced in October of the same year that the hotel and restaurant were open for business. The often-repeated claim of the building dating to 1864 is just plain false. Other buildings were on the site before the Bender, but they were torn down and no remnants remained. Saying the building is over 150 years old as they were doing in the 2010s is not accurate, although it’s almost true now.
The building, a two-story 38×45 structure, was erected at a cost of $4,000. The stone came from the quarry of J. Pinneo and the mason was George Hola. Taylor’s Mill supplied the wood, and the
carpenter was George Capener. It originally had a wooden cornice.
According to Bob Dewel, some time between 1879 and 1881, President Rutherford B. Hayes was said to make a train stop in Baraboo and enjoy dinner at the Bender Hotel.
In November of 1884, a fire took place in the east wing of the Bender House. The fire was discovered in one of the bedrooms and it was reported “before it could be extinguished it got into the hired girl’s bed and made things uncomfortably warm for a few minutes.” Mrs. Bender’s son-in-law Joseph Junk (1842-1904), proprietor of the house estimated the damage to be about $40.
Frank Bender (b. 1859), who conducted the Bender Hotel after 1890, died November 30, 1904. Bender, only 45, left his wife Pauline, two sons (Leroy and Arthur) sister Isabel Junk, and brother Adolph of Leland.
In April of 1905 the corner entrance was installed and as early as 1908 and until 1917, when the city went dry; this building housed the August Reineke Saloon. It also housed the Bender House until
1921. The Benders retained ownership into the 1930s. Arthur was sent to Europe for World War II and was on the USS Tuscania when it sunk in 1918 – most soldiers survived, but 210 did not. Arthur was a lucky one – although he died in May 1933, at only 37 years old.
In February of 1921, Reineke transferred the business to Arthur and Leroy Bender. The Bender brothers operated a restaurant here which included illegal booze. Bother brothers and Harrison Case were picked up in April 1925 but released for lack of evidence. Arthur was arrested for it in March 1928 but had charges thrown out for an illegal search. May 1928, Arthur was arrested after a raid, again with Harrison Case. In December 1929, Judge Claude Luse had the doors of the restaurant padlocked for a period of one year. The closing of the café had no bearing on the operation of the rest of the building.
Harrison A. Case was a local boy, no Chicago gangster. When his mother passed away in 1935, he took a shotgun and shot himself in the mouth at the Wisconsin Dells restaurant he worked at. His note said he had no future, so he was saying goodbye. Interestingly, Case was a cousin to Governor Phil LaFollette, a major crusader during Prohibition.
In November of 1938, M. E. Gale purchased this building from Adeline Becker (??) and the First National Bank and Trust Company. Gale went on to do some general repair work including a new roof, which were sorely needed.
In January of 1939, Harold Pierce, owner of Pierce’s Restaurant on Walnut Street, purchased this building from Gale. He immediately set forth remodeling the interior to suit his needs as a restaurant.
It is believed that as early as 1946, Lila Marking was conducting the U-Bar at this location. A building permit was issued to Lila Marking in April of 1947 to remodel the portion of this building located at this address as well as that portion located at 305 Lynn Street. Lila’s brothers, Gene and Bill Zehnpfennig moved the U-shaped bar here from the Huntley Hotel in Reedsburg. A liquor
dealer from Wisconsin Dells loaned his truck and assistance to the duo.
In April of 1954, the Marking Bar & Restaurant was sold to Joseph Jensen of Reedsburg. In 1956, Norman and Sylvia Watrub were conducting the Big Top Supper Club on this corner.
Various restaurants have been located here since that time, including Jensen’s Bar & Restaurant in 1955 and the Big Top Supper Club during the 1950s. Flo’s Big Top bar operated here in 1961 becoming Lorraine’s Big Top Lounge in 1962 and later in 1962 became the Strikeout Club when John J. Dombroski (1910-1979) purchased what was then Larson’s Bar.
Later, by 1964 Dombroski changed the name to the Old Baraboo Inn. He also conducted Dombroski’s Package Goods store here from 1964 through 1980. John Dombroski operated here until his death in 1979. In November 1976, John gave an interview to the Capital Times in Madsion. He spoke up growing up in Menasha picking strawberries as a child, and then turning to bootlegging in his teenage years. He would age whiskey in barrels from Menasha Woodenware. He had a part-time job running a bootleg route for other people. As he tells it, “The other people turned out to be Al Capone, I found out later. But I didn’t know who he was then. The bullets would really fly sometimes, that’s what scared me. I finally quit. Told them I was going back to school, but I went on full-time at the box factory.” He said he moved to Baraboo in 1940 and spent much of his time managing local baseball teams. He said in 1945 he opened a gambling den in Baraboo with poker and dice three nights a week and lost everything but his last $1,000, which he used to ope na beer depot. In 1968, he lost his left eye and in February 1976 he lost his left leg to infection.
John’s son, Jack, then took control of the family business and bought out his mother’s interest. The business closed in August of 1989, when a fire partially destroyed the building. The fire started in the french fryer following Jack’s popular Friday night fish fry. Dombroski stated that he lost over 400 mugs and steins of his collection, some worth upwards of $500.
In June of 2002, and after many years of remodeling, B. C. Farr, a Baraboo native re-opened the Old Baraboo Inn. His mother had allegedly worked at this location when it was Pierce’s Cafe in the 1940s.