Saturday will mark the one-year anniversary of the disappearance of John Spira, a St. Charles resident and West Chicago businessman.

To commemorate the day, his friends and family plan to hold a party from 3 to 7 p.m. Saturday at Kingston Mines in Chicago.

"It's the first thing we've done really for John," said Spira's sister, Stephanie McNeil, of Phoenix. "Everything's been work; searches and trying to find answers."

Spira, an accomplished blues musician and an aviation and racing enthusiast, was last scene at about 7 p.m. Feb. 23, 2007, at Universal Cable Construction, the business he started more than a decade ago, in unincorporated West Chicago. Around that time he called a friend to confirm their 8:30 p.m. dinner in Oak Brook.

Spira never arrived to the dinner, nor did he make it to a gig the next night with his blues band, the Rabble Rousers.

McNeil said Spira, the band's lead guitarist, went by the name "Chicago Johnny" and hadn't missed a gig in nearly 30 years.

Spira and his estranged wife had just agreed on the final terms of their divorce settlement the morning of Feb. 23, McNeil said. At 5:30 a.m. Feb. 25, his wife filed a missing persons report with the St. Charles Police Department.

After months of dead-end leads, the case seemed to be rapidly cooling off. Then Spira's business mysteriously went up in flames in September. While investigating the fire, McNeil learned someone had also dismantled and completely removed a large missing person billboard friends had hung up across the street from the business just days before the fire. Another sign was again removed, shortly after it was replaced.

McNeil and her brother, Tom Spira, held out hope that the fire would reignite interest in their brother's disappearance. But arson investigators told McNeil they still don't know what caused the fire and who took removed the signs.

"I'm really frustrated," McNeil said. "I feel like it's slipped through the cracks, I feel like it's just sitting there."

St. Charles police spokesman Paul McCurtain and Cmdr. Mark Edwalds, with the DuPage County Sheriff's office, said the case is still open but there have been few leads to follow up on, especially as months have passed.

"We've worked all the leads we've gotten and we're still working on some. So far, none of the leads point to any particular theory or reason for his disappearance, whether it be on his own accord or at the hands of someone else," Edwalds said. "Sometimes you just get the ones that just totally frustrate you, like this one."

With no evidence of foul play at Spira's home or business, the investigation is still being treated as a missing person's case and not a homicide. But McNeil said she knows her brother would not just abandon his life and family.

"He's a very gregarious, outgoing, friendly person," McNeil said after a December search. "I don't know anybody who doesn't like him."

Since her brother's disappearance, McNeil has regularly flown to Chicago from Phoenix to organize searches and gatherings, trying to find answers and media attention for Spira.

On Saturday, many people who knew him and enjoyed his music will gather at Kingston Mines to remember him. More than 20 years ago, Spira found his passion for blues during a jam session at the renowned blues venue, McNeil said. From that point on, he attended the jam sessions "religiously."

"We don't want to do a formal memorial, my mom doesn't want that, we're not ready for that," McNeil said. "We want it to be uplifting."

Kingston Mines donated the space and McNeil said the family is providing the food. She plans on playing some of her brother's blues music throughout the night and hopes the party can be a space for people to talk and to help them through the grief of an anniversary no one would want to celebrate.

"It definitely is a mile stone," McNeil said. "It's a very difficult one — really, really hard. But I'm not going to give up. I'm not going to let up. I'm still going to do whatever I can do to figure this out because I can't stop."