Chicago Tribune reporter David Heinzmann links Gold Rush [slot machine] Gaming owner Rick Heidner to Blackjacks’ strip club, a staple on McHenry County highways.

The interconnectons in the story are well-researched and remind me of two stories that Alex MacArthur told me about his time as Racing Board Chairman under Governor Richard Ogilvie.

The first was from the time he walked into an empty office after Ogilvie took over from Govenor Otto Kerner.

The only paper he saw was sticking up from behind stesm radiator.

It has a series of initials with numbers next to them.

One set of initials were “O.K.”

He called the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“Two straping young men” arrived, Jim Thompson and Sam Skinner.

The indictment of Otto Kerner and others whose initials were on the sheet of paper resulted.

The second story was about Jim Thompson’s second or third election.

Some time after the election, MacArthur said he had taken himsel to a place where reporters could not find him.

MacArthur, you see, would not lie to reporters.

There was some question about the former owner of Arlington Park Racetrack, Marge Everett, which MacArthur feared he might be asked right before the election.

Perhaps not related, but Everett, I’ve been told, planned to build a racetrck in Richmond.

Her business model had the State of Wisconsin building Interstates from Madison and Milwaukee to just north of Richmond.

Those four-lane highways exist today.

The Interstate planned on the Illinois approach to the site remains unconstructed.

The right-of-way has been purchased by IDOT, then given to the Tollway at the behest of former Johnsburg resident Al Jourdan, Jr., over the opposition of all legislators reprenting McHenry County.

Jourdan served from 1968 through 2000 as McHenry County Republican Party Chairman, as well as State GOP Chairman, assuming that post during the Thompson years.