The grand opening this week of the new Hollywood Casino in the historic “City of Lights,” Aurora, Illinois, approximately 35 miles due west of Chicago, came as a ticket down memory lane for those who recall the dawn of state-sanctioned riverboat casino gambling in the Land of Lincoln.
The original Hollywood Casino Aurora opened in June of 1993 as a twin-vessel operation on the shores of the Fox River. It was owned and operated by the Pratt Family of Las Vegas and Atlantic City fame under the leadership of Edward T. Pratt III, Hollywood Casino Corporation’s chairman of the board, president, and chief executive officer.
It was not just another property for the Pratt Family. It was the company’s first riverboat operation and its first Hollywood-branded casino at a time Hollywood Casino Corp owned and managed one of the world’s largest collections of memorabilia and artifacts from the movie industry and from the stars of the silver screen themselves…