Only a small number of these historic bars survived and have been rescued. This bar and mirror were located in Philadelphia, PA, sitting, disassembled, in a backroom of an old historic building. The bar, mirror and its accoutrements were created by Brunswick-Balke-Collender in Dubuque, Iowa in 1895. The front bar is 18 feet long. The matching side backs, cigar and wine cabinets and supporting display totals 22 feet while the whole piece stands 9 feet tall. The ornate carvings and arched cabinetry stir the soul and spark dreams of the way life must have been in the bar’s glory days. If you look long enough in the mirror and you might catch a glimmer of its historic past captured in the massive glass.

Although the exact history of the bar is as unknown as the secrets it keeps, it is believed that after a time out west, the piece ended up in a bar on the Florida coast. The smoky little place was a favorite of Al Capone’s when he was visiting his mother. There is no telling what the mirror witnessed there.