The story of the Green Dragon Inn sounds like it's worth repeating. I found the followong article here:
http://home.att.net/~dick107c/pdf/2007.04.26.pdf
It comes originally from the January 1985 newsletter of the Madison (Wis) Folk Music Society. The author is Perry Baird.

Farewell to the Old Green Dragon Inn!
It's a story that's been heard in a hundred places in recent years: A folk music club is closing its doors, victim of slackening patronage. In its near-13 years a hundred yards from the end of the peninsula we call Blackhawk Island, the Green Dragon Inn weathered its share of spring flooding and winter ice flows, and it consistently brought to southern Wisconsin some of the most talented performers and their acoustic music.
Proprietor Joe Moore, on the strength of his Chicago folk-club experience, created an atmosphere that was a delight for both performers and audiences. It was a listening room where those on the business side of the microphone could expect to perform free from the distractions of inattentive crowds, and those listening to the
act could expect courtesy from neighboring audience members. The result was musical communication between those on the six-inch wood platform that was the stage and those in the unmatched wooden chairs and church pews surrounding the tables.
The Dragon's last evening, December 22, 1984, featured Illinois-based folk singer Art Thieme, whose performances always crossed the line between concert and theater. I'd seen his act dozens of times there and heard most of the stories, jokes, and puns. Somehow, even though you knew all the punchlines, it never ceased to amuse. Perhaps it was because you were laughing along with the first time.
Art had written Rock River Valley, a folk song that was nearly an anthem to Green Dragon fans. The last verse of the song, composed on one of Art¹s visits to the club some years earlier, is likely the only musical piece ever to incorporate the phrase, "Koshkonong's green tide."
It was comfortable at the Green Dragon; I've heard it described as like being in a good friend's living room. This old inn, with the Rock River at its front door and Lake Koshkonong at its back, was my introduction to folk music.
I thought about all the performers I'd seen there - Larry Penn and Bill Camplin, both of whom were in the audience that final night, and about Art, Jim Craig, Jan Marra, Roxanne Neat, Mike McDougal, Dan Keding, Walter Craft, and dozens of others. The one thing you could always count on was a quality performance on any given Friday or Saturday night. In the 10 years or so that I patronized the place, I can say I was never disappointed.
The venue itself was not perfection, to be sure. Old and not well-insulated, the building could be cold and drafty in winter, still and
sweltering in summer, and underwater in spring. It was usually smoky, often a haven for moths and mosquitoes (especially in the fenced-in beer garden out back), and was located so far off the beaten path that I'm sure many gave up trying to find the place half-way down Blackhawk Island Road.
A few unique things sufficed to overwhelm the drawbacks, however. The music, of course, was number one. This also included classical music more often than not from Joe's collection of Chicago Symphony Orchestra records.
There was the intimate atmosphere; the limited-but-exceptional menu, featuring stuffed pizza and sandwiches (the delectably seasoned Dragon Burger over a pilot light you could delve into if music, eating, drinking, and simple conversation weren't diversions enough; and the "dragon's milk" specialty drinks, frothed up hot by a physically impressive, sometimes obnoxiously loud, espresso machine on the bar. Beer more suited my taste, and I could get it in a full one-liter clay stein. On a good night I could consume two of them; three usually meant a very bad night (and a worse morning after). From the beer taps in the early days poured Old Chicago light and dark, a Peter Hand brew that went extinct in the late '70s. Joe then substituted Augsberger.
I lamented the demise of the salted-in-the-shell peanuts, baskets of which had been offered at each table. Patrons for years were encouraged to freely toss the shells on the floor, resulting in a distinctive crunching as people walked through the room. Unfortunately, the combination of soaring nut prices in the late '70s and carpeting installed after the record-high flooding of 1979 rendered the snack impractical.
The place had a lived-in ambience. There was the dart board with accompanying holes in the wall, stage, window frames, and nearby furniture; the brown burlap curtains; the near-ceiling-height candle, constructed like a stalagmite from the wax of hundreds of smaller candles; the Latin graffiti on the rest room walls; the old gooseneck microphone stands that Art and others constantly wrestled with and joked about; the warm fire in the back-room stove on cold evenings.
At 12:10 a.m. on December 23, Joe and JoAnn Moore showed up during Art's last two songs. Art had joked earlier that he had closed the place at least a couple times before Madison and as the act to close out Bill Camplin's one-year tenure running the club. Now, seven months later, he was doing it for John Widdicombe, and this time it seemed pretty final. The other times there were managers poised to keep the place going, but this time there would be no such continuity; Joe needed to sell. The doors were to close shortly after Art's performance and no one knew if they would open to the public again.
Art wrapped things up nicely in his intro to "Thanksgiving Eve," the final song of his last set. On behalf of the legion of fellow Green Dragon performers, Art thanked owners Joe and JoAnn and managers Bill and Kitty and John and Vickie for the kindness, thoughtfulness, and attention shown to musicians and music over the years. And he thanked the patrons for the support shown for so long.
The final line of Art¹s last song, "So love "til you¹ve loved it away" appropriately brought the curtain down. It was the end of 13 years of ballads and bluegrass, dirges and ditties, blues and ragtime of music we lump into a broad category called "folk."
The customers bid friendly good-byes and drifted out; Joe, JoAnn, Art, Larry Penn, and Larry's wife sipped cups of coffee at one of the tables and talked. It seemed like friends commiserating at the wake of a beloved, elderly relative life.
From my bar stool I could see Art wiping his eyes. I couldn't tell if it was from emotion or some foreign object. I imagine it could have been emotion; there was enough of it in the room just then.
Postscript:
Joe¹s Green Dragon venture in Madison on the Hamilton Street establishment there, but in so doing had overextended his finances to the point where he eventually had to sell off both Madison and Fort Atkinson properties. The structure on Blackhawk Island re-opened briefly as a bar and then became a residence. The building that housed the Madison Green Dragon was torn down a few years ago to accommodate the new Dane County Court House.
Within a year of the Fort Green Dragon¹s closing, former managers Bill Camplin and Kitty Welch, who had moved back to Madison in early 1984, returned to Fort and set up the Café Carpe in the old building on South Water Street where Clark¹s tavern had been. They picked up providing a venue for acoustic music where the Green Dragon had left off. Last July 29, the Café Carpe held a "Green Dragon Reunion," bringing back many performers from the Blackhawk Island days.

I'm sorry I didn't get the chance to go to the Green Dragon, but it opened just after the Army got me and took me away from Wisconsin. I'm surprised that a folk club could survive for 13 years in a town as small as Fort Atkinson. Wish I could have been there for your final performance at the club, Art.

-Joe-