Willowbrook Ballroom

Verderbar quickly assembled a team of 200 carpenters to construct an enormous outdoor dance floor in time for the next Saturday night.

As Big Band fever spread throughout 1940s America, the Oh Henry Ballroom, now with air conditioning, became a major force in the Midwest’s entertainment industry.

[citation needed] Willowbrook Ballroom attracted some of the most popular bands of their times including Ozzie Nelson and his orchestra in the 1930s with lead singer Harriet Hilliard.

The 1940s orchestras of Harry James, Les Brown and Count Basie played the ballroom, and singers Frank Sinatra, Doris Day And Helen O'Connell graced the stage, later so did Wayne King, Guy Lombardo, Sammy Kaye, Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Crosby, Dick Jurgens, Glenn Miller Orchestra and Gene Krupa.

Theatre organist Hal Pearl known as "The King of the Organ" occasionally played in the ballroom between sets and sometimes offered his own concerts.

Chubby Checker played the ballroom as did The Cryan' Shames, The Association, The Buckinghams, Otis Day and the Knights, Duke Tumatoe and The All Star Frogs, The Village People, and Martha Reeves.

[6] Criteria for being profiled as an Amateur Dancers magazine's "Finest Floor" is: On October 28, 2016 the Willowbrook Ballroom was again destroyed by a massive, multi-alarm fire.

[7] As of early Spring 2017 the Dance of Life Foundation—a Burr Ridge-based nonprofit organization—claims to have raised nearly $2 million to rebuild the historic ballroom.

[8] On Feb. 25, 2019 Crain's Chicago Business reported that suburban construction firm Westpoint Builders had purchased, on Feb. 13, 2019, half of the Willowbrook Ballroom site for 1.25 million dollars.