With its boarded-over windows, weed-choked grounds and cracked parking lot, the Wonder Bar Steakhouse at 222 E. Olin Avenue has certainly seen better days. No wonder that a developer wants to tear down the bar, which has been closed for five years, and the also-shuttered Coliseum Bar & Grill next door and build a project that includes housing, commercial space and a bike trail.
But some neighbors say that if the building is demolished, so will its colorful history. They want to see it preserved somehow for future generations.
That preservation plan had a big setback recently when the city’s Landmarks Commission recommended denying the building landmark status. However, the commission did say the site has historic value, which could add extra requirement permits to be secured before the building is demolished. [WMTV, WKOW]
Here’s a look at the Wonder Bar’s colorful history of mobsters and ghosts:
🔫 A Mobster’s Castle
The Wonder Bar was opened in 1929 by Roger “The Terrible” Touhy, an Irish-American mob boss in Chicago who was a rival of Al Capone. Some say Touhy was raking in over $1 million a year from bootlegging and gambling, and he opened the Wonder Bar as a place to launder his illicit gains out of state, and make more money smuggling booze into Wisconsin.
It was also an opportunity for Touhy’s bartender brother Eddie. The castle-like building was originally known as The Garden Lunch and then Eddie’s Wonder Bar, and its clientele supposedly included famous mobsters of the day, including John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson. Although, as with so much surrounding the Wonder Bar, it’s hard to separate lore from reality. [ 🔒MJS, Cap Times]
🚨 Protection From the Law
The bar was often under surveillance by the FBI, and rumor has it that sections of the turret towers could be removed for mobsters to poke their tommyguns through in case of a raid. No shootouts were ever recorded.
There was also reportedly a tunnel that ran east towards Lake Monona that gangsters could use to smuggle booze and to escape if the “G-men” ever stormed the bar.
👻 Ghost Stories
Eddie “disappeared” sometime in the 1950s, and rumor has it that his body was buried under the fireplace on the second floor. Employees shared stories of hearing footsteps in the building in unoccupied areas, or finding objects moved from their original location. One manager said a friend of his went into the basement and felt like he was being choked. [American Ghost Walks]
🍸 A Shot of History
While the Wonder Bar’s mob ties were cut in the 1950s, its history made the bar a favorite of local luminaries, who ordered martinis and gathered around the bar’s roaring fireplace. It was especially popular among UW Badger fans, coaches and ex-players like Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch. The walls were decorated with remnants of its gangster past, including Frank Sinatra’s 1938 mug shot. [Cap Times, Madison Magazine]
⛔ End of an Era
The Wonder Bar closed in early 2021, a casualty of the COVID pandemic. Then-owner Dick Whelan was working with developers on building a $40 million, 18-story residential and commercial project. But those plans were put on hold by the Madison Plan Commission after a city preservation planner said the building had historic value. It’s sat unoccupied for the past five years, waiting for the last chapter in its story to be told. [WMTV]
The Madison City Council will take up the Landmarks Commission’s recommendation on Sept. 8.
