A Few Good Ideas for Al Capone's Hideout

I've heard several good ideas over the years about what we should do with Al Capone’s Hideout beginning with the idea to move slots in there and turn it into a high rollers casino resort, landing them on the lake and the whole bit. Give ‘em the Al Capone experience!

Then there was the idea of turning into a drug and alcohol treatment center, charging for services and opening it up to other tribes nationwide. Lord knows we have our own problems with drugs and alcohol here at home, so we'd offer the services to our own people free of charge. A third idea was the assisted living facility, something to keep our Elder's here at home instead of risking mistreatment outside the Rez.

I like all three of these ideas, but then just recently I heard another idea from our former chairman, Gosh, and it's probably the most feasible and cost efficient idea yet, aside from putting slot machines in there. This idea we could make happen without having to seek grants. Gosh suggested making it a dinner theatre with plays re-enacting Al Capone's retreats here back in the Roaring 20’s and focusing the plays on his interaction with our tribal people during that time. We could make connections with UW-Stout to produce the plays and could get drama students from the high school, or even have the college start a drama course. During the tourist season we'd get a lot of tourists and Hayward folks who would pay a decent price to come out and have dinner and see a great historical play.

There are a few other things could be done with it and around this theme, but that's it in a nutshell. For example, there are enough rooms and buildings there that we could still have a small casino and a gift shop with the dinner theatre. I'm not sure if the land is in trust, but I don't see why it wouldn't be by now. We've owned it for what, five years now. I hope we're not still paying taxes on this land that is buried deep within our rez.

We could even seek funding for this project in a unique and unconventional way. There are many TV shows on air these days, such as Restaurant Impossible or Bar Rescue, where the hosts of the show come in to a failing business and help restore it. Al Capone’s Hideout is a historic landmark and we may be able to find one of these shows that would love the chance to refurbish the Hideout back to its glory days. They may not be able to put in all the Al Capone memorabilia that once was, but I’m sure they could still make it look like the Roaring 20’s and the one-time hideout of Al Capone.

The other idea for funding to restore it to its former glory would be to seek crowd-funding through a site such as Kickstarter.com. Many historical projects are getting funded great sums of money right now from millions of investors all over the place. For example, a local crowdfund was the Spooner theatre which received funding through Kickstarter.com to restore their old theatre.

I like the idea of restoring the Hideout and having re-enactment dinner plays and I think it's something that could be done rather quickly. We could even have this dinner theater up and running by next summer, 2016. But, like I said, I like all four ideas above and definitely would support a treatment center or assisted living facility if the grant dollars could be found.

It's important to put something in there that actually turns a profit for our tribe, which will take additional investment, or we put something in there that provides an awesome service for our tribe, like an assisted living facility. It might be possible to find grants to cover it so very little expense falls on the tribe.

We definitely can’t sit on it and do nothing like our current leadership's attitude. Right Now Mic Isham has his family members living out there. Not sure if the tribe is paying the bills, but most likely, and that’s wrong. Was this "position" posted for any other family to have that opportunity? This is what I'm talking about with this chairman and who benefits. Only a few while the rest suffer. Think of all the homeless people we have and that we can’t help but we can house the chairman's family rent free.

They should have an Open House day or something for any tribal member who wants to go up there and have a walk-through. We own it so we should be able to see it. I was given the opportunity to walk through not long after the purchase and it is a beautiful piece of property. The main building will need a little work to get back in order to bring back the Capone theme would be somewhat difficult because all the memorabilia is gone, but not impossible.