How do you get into Boiler Room – RAIL’s Hidden Speakeasy & Lounge?
We have not confirmed it. Boiler Room – RAIL’s Hidden Speakeasy & Lounge is in the directory because it described as hidden, and that is the whole of what we can stand behind about its door.
Drinks of the era
We have not seen this venue’s own list, so what follows is the period rather than the bar: Blood and Sand, Bobby Burns, and Rob Roy are all drinks of this era, and each links to its origin and its build.
The building
Documented — Boiler Room – RAIL’s Hidden Speakeasy & Lounge occupies the Sentinel Building, a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 78001169. The listing is a federal record maintained by the National Park Service, and the nomination document is the primary source for the building’s architectural and social history.
National Register reference 78001169 · NPS nomination document
Where Boiler Room – RAIL’s Hidden Speakeasy & Lounge sits
Boiler Room – RAIL’s Hidden Speakeasy & Lounge is in Centralia, Illinois, in Marion County, in the Midwest of the United States.
This is currently the only verified hidden bar our directory lists in Centralia. If you know another, tell us.
Illinois holds 71 listed venues in this directory. See them all on our Illinois speakeasy guide.
Prohibition in Illinois
Illinois came under national prohibition on 17 January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment took effect and the Volstead Act defined an intoxicating beverage as anything above one half of one per cent alcohol — a threshold strict enough to close breweries that had expected to survive.
More on the period in our history of Prohibition in Illinois.
What the newspapers recorded in Illinois
Searching the Library of Congress run of Illinois newspapers for speakeasy, blind pig and bootlegger across 1920 to 1933 returns dated pages anyone can open. These are from Illinois:
- The Rock Island Argus and daily union, April 27, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The Chicago whip, May 29, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- Free trader-journal and Ottawa fair dealer, November 26, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- The Rock Island Argus and daily union, December 9, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
Planning a visit
You can reach Boiler Room – RAIL’s Hidden Speakeasy & Lounge through its own website and on Facebook.
The address is 216 E Broadway, Centralia, IL 62801-3251. Open in Google Maps.
What we have confirmed
For Boiler Room – RAIL’s Hidden Speakeasy & Lounge we hold street address, official website, social accounts, and a listed-building record. We do not yet hold telephone number, opening hours, a published drinks list, or an online booking link.
It is in the directory because its own name calls it hidden, calls it a lounge, calls it a room rather than a bar, and calls it a speakeasy and the description in the source data describes it as a speakeasy.
Overture Maps carries this venue; OpenStreetMap has no matching record.
The source data classifies the premises as a bar.