It is uninhabited and when we visited it, from its stillness, loneliness, and quiet, we pronounced it a vast vegetable solitude. The ridge, when viewed from a distance, appears standing in an azure mist of vapor, hence the appellation, Blue Island.
from the Chicago Democrat, February 1834

By 1918, at the age of 44, Hackett was a businessman of sufficient stature to have been made a life member of the local Elks, Blue Island Lodge No 1331. There was once a plaque in a park commemorating his generosity to the community. My father looked for it once, and thinks it was removed or let to become overgrown as Hackett's style of patronage went out of style, and turned into something Blue Islanders were ashamed about.