The RHS Facebook page is a rich archive of history-related posts by Carol Flynn, RHS Facebook admin and writer until mid-2025. Carol prolifically wrote a wide variety of meticulously researched local history articles for RHS. She continues to write for the Beverly Review and other media sources with articles particularly focused on local Ridge history.
Morgan Park Pool Table Controversy
We’ve got trouble! Right here in Morgan Park! With a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool!
Where were Professor Harold Hill and Marion the Librarian when you needed them?
The attached newspaper article about a pool table in Morgan Park was published 127 years ago today – July 12, 1892. The incident occurred at Silva Hall (see photo, RHS collection), which was on Hale just north of 111th St. The first floor of the hall was for businesses, and where the grocery store was located. The second floor housed the Morgan Park branch of the Calumet Club, one of the oldest men’s clubs in the city. A theater was on the third floor. Silva Hall was built in 1891 and burned down in 1907.
Public pool halls were controversial. The common belief was that hanging around a pool hall tempted young men to worse evils like drinking alcohol. But while some people considered playing pool a vice, at the same time many of the prestigious men’s clubs had pool rooms. Chicago had rules for licensing pool tables, but they were not enforced with any regularity. One of the biggest producers of pool tables, Brunswick, was located in Chicago.
In Morgan Park, even though many of the citizens might have wanted the pool table banned, it was supported by men who were on the village council board and members of the Calumet Club. RHS has very fragile remnants of two issues of the Morgan Park Gazette (see photo by C. Flynn), put out by S. P. Wilson, who also ran the grocery store and was a fellow member of the Calumet Club.
Pool was not banned from Morgan Park. In 1894, the village council established ordinances including that a pool table operated for profit had to be licensed. The cost of the license was $5 per table. The new ordinances also came with the firm warning that “no place where any billiard or pool table is kept shall be allowed to become the resort of dissolute or disreputable persons, or be carried on in a disorderly or improper manner.”
The play “The Music Man” is currently being performed at the Goodman Theater. This is a case of art imitating life.