ST. LOUIS • On Jan. 16, 1919, the Prohibition amendment was passed, making St. Louis and all cities officially dry despite widespread flouting of the law. The last brave bartenders had shut their taps by 12:01 a.m. Jan. 17, 1920, the official start of constitutional Prohibition. Federal agents drove the streets and couldn’t find any lawbreaking.
The Post-Dispatch noted dryly, “Prohibition has had an erratic career in St. Louis.” So it would remain, sometimes rattled by machine guns, for 13 long years.
History remembers the first day under the 18th Amendment, but Congress had imposed partial prohibition the previous summer. Prohibitionists, or “drys,” had seized upon saving grain and fuel for World War I, even though the war ended before they got their wish. Lower-alcohol beer (2.75 percent) flowed pending court challenges, but New Year’s Eve 1919 was more damp than wet — revelers had to bring their own hard stuff from dwindling household stocks.
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The federal Volstead Act, the law intended to enforce the 18th Amendment, made it illegal even to carry a pocket flask outside one’s own home. On Jan. 19, John Goheen, proprietor of a rooming house on South 10th Street, was caught on the sidewalk hauling two suitcases filled with whiskey bottles.
The case for Prohibition, long sought by well-intended reformers to spare families from drunken fathers, also had more than a tinge of scorn for cities, immigrants and Catholics. In places like St. Louis, that kind of thinking went nowhere.
Prohibition was a bonanza for local gangs like Egan’s Rats, Hogan’s and the Cuckoos. Moving up from safecracking and banditry, they littered the streets with each others’ bodies as they battled to satisfy the public thirst.
Prohibition did reduce cases of cirrhosis, but it also made a lawbreaker of anyone who wanted a bracer. Criminal gangs and ordinary citizens became clandestine brewers and distillers, with wildly varying results and lots of headlines.
Federal agents sift through the remains of cases of liquor they threw from a boxcar on Sept. 25, 1924, in west St. Louis County. They smashed the bottles that hadn't already been broken and burned the wooden cases. The boxcar had come from New Orleans and was parked on a siding near Denny (now Lindbergh) and Conway roads. Agents watched it for two days, hoping to catch someone unloading the car, but finally just destroyed the load. (Post-Dispatch)
On July 22, 1925, St. Louis officers nabbed 179 suspected moonshiners, including Jennie Buttee of 5115 Daggett Avenue. She told officers she hadn’t a clue how a vat of 5,000 gallons of mash got into her basement.
Enforcement never stopped the flow. Five years later, agents raided a fashionable home at 3733 Pine Street, a site that produced 250 gallons a day.
Seen from a distance of eight decades, the tale is comical. But most mobsters were bad people, and some of their product was sufficiently awful to kill. Here are some of the more memorable tales from Prohibition St. Louis:
WHEN A TABLECLOTH IS A DRESS
The hot ticket for New Year’s Eve 1922 was the party at the new Chase Hotel, at Kingshighway and Lindell Boulevard. Management made the ritual warnings about obeying the law, but floor-length tablecloths made it easy to hide refreshments.
To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis, Tim O'Neil is reviewing the area's history.
At 1:30 a.m., five officers accompanying Gus O. Nations, a dedicated teetotaler and St. Louis’ chief dry agent, strolled brashly into the hotel’s Palm Room without removing their hats. Officers checked beneath tables.
A woman screamed, claiming an agent had grabbed her gown instead. Her escort slugged the officer. It was instant pandemonium.
As the force retreated, detective Ed Sullivan accidently fired a shot into the floor, winging three dancers. Henry S. Priest, a former federal judge who attended the party, sued Nations on behalf of one of the wounded. Ten days later, Priest led the Missouri Association Against the Prohibition Amendment with a rally attended by 2,000 people.
Priest battled Prohibition until his death in 1930, three years before repeal.
OUR OF THE BARREL, THROUGH THE HOSE, DOWN THE ALLEY...
In 1910, when Tennessee went dry by state law, the Jack Daniel distillery moved to St. Louis. As national Prohibition took effect, the plant at 3960 Duncan Avenue, near Vandeventer and Forest Park avenues, held nearly 900 barrels of the famous whiskey.
The Volstead Act allowed the sale of intoxicants only as prescription medicine. Federal inspectors guarded the Jack Daniel warehouse, but its inventory was just too tempting.
In August 1923, well-connected crooks methodically siphoned 31,000 gallons through a hose to trucks waiting down the alley. They refilled the barrels with vinegar and water, leaving one untouched — all under the easily distracted eye of chief guard William Kinney, who had family links to the Egan’s Rats gang.
When a visiting inspector tasted vinegar, the notorious “whiskey milking case” was born. Two years later, in a federal trial in Indianapolis, 23 men were convicted in the scam, including several prominent St. Louisans.
Among them were former city Circuit Clerk Nat Goldstein and Arnold Hellmich, chief federal revenue agent in St. Louis and the man who had appointed Kinney. For their trip to prison at Leavenworth, Kan., they rented a private railroad car.
More than 4,000 admirers cheered them when the train backed into Union Station for a stop. Tom Foley, a local gambler and milking convict, scanned the crowd and said, “We can’t be so bad after all.”
BOMBS AWAY
Charlie Birger grew up in St. Louis and led a gang in Southern Illinois. Their main rivals were hoods led by the Shelton brothers, country boys named Carl, Earl and Bernie.
The Birger gang poses for a group portrait at its hangout, Shady Rest, about 10 miles east of Marion, Ill. Leader Charlie Birger is seated atop the car, wearing a bulletproof vest and holding a Thompson submachine gun. The Birgers battled the Shelton gang for control of bootleg liquor in southern Illinois. In November 1926, the Sheltons hired a bi-plane pilot to fly one of their men over Shady Rest and drop homemade dynamite bombs. Nobody was hurt by the bombs or the return ground fire. Post-Dispatch file photo
Birger’s hideout was the Shady Rest, a former tourist stop 10 miles east of Marion, Ill. On Nov. 12, 1926, Birger gangsters shot up the home of a brother of Joe Adams, mayor of West City, Ill., and a Shelton ally. The retaliation was creative.
The Sheltons quickly hired a barnstorming pilot, who took one of their men up in a Curtiss Jenny biplane for a bombing raid over Shady Rest. The bombardier tossed three homemade dynamite bombs, only one of which exploded to no strategic effect. Birger men sprayed the sky with submachine-gun fire, missing the plane.
One month later, Birger assassins cornered Adams. Birger was convicted in the murder and went to the gallows in Benton, Ill., on April 19, 1928. Shortly before his death, he told the Post-Dispatch, “I’ve shot men in my time, but I never shot one that didn’t deserve it.”
HAPPY DAYS A-COMING
Two weeks before Election Day in November 1932, Democratic candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke at a rally in the St. Louis Coliseum at Jefferson and Washington avenues, then the city’s main auditorium. Sensing victory, more than 12,000 giddy Democrats jammed the arena and an additional 5,000 crowded the sidewalks.
They applauded Roosevelt’s ponderous 50-minute speech about farm policy and railroad debt, but roared when he called for restoring beer production.
“We want beer!” rose the chant.
On Nov. 8, four days before the election, President Herbert Hoover spoke at the Coliseum. St. Louis Republicans begged him to say a good word about alcohol, but he declined. Not that it mattered — with the Depression at its depths, Roosevelt won a 42-state landslide.
Revelers celebrate the return of legal beer in the first hour of April 7, 1933, at the Hotel Jefferson, at 12th (now Tucker Boulevard) and Locust streets. More than 600 people made reservations for the party there. Post-Dispatch file photo
BEER IS BACK
Beer drinkers got their wish at 12:01 a.m. on April 7, 1933. A decidedly wet Congress had begun the effort to repeal Prohibition, but that would take months. Meanwhile, it finessed the definition of “intoxicant” to allow beer with 3.2 percent alcohol content.
The first wagon filled with beer leaves the Anheuser-Busch brewery at 12:01 a.m. April 7, 1933, when beer became legal again after 13 years of Prohibition. Congress already had recommended repeal, but changing the Constitution took time. In the meantime, Congress permitted beer by finessing the federal definition of intoxicating beverages, allowing beer with 3.2 percent alcohol content. Full repeal came in December 1933. Post-Dispatch file photo
Festive crowds gathered at the Anheuser-Busch and Falstaff breweries as midnight approached. “Come and get it,” shouted August A. “Gussie” Busch as truckloads moved through the crowds for deliveries to the lucky holders of federal permits to sell beer.
One was the Elks Club at 3619 Lindell Boulevard, where Mayor-elect Bernard Dickmann led the first round.
On Dec. 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment for repeal became part of the U.S. Constitution. Missouri legislators would dither a while more before striking the state’s own ban against the full drink trade.
Not that it mattered. When police arrested a liquor-store owner, city Circuit Attorney Harry Rosecan refused to prosecute, saying, “This man has committed no crime.”
Photos: Look back at prohibition in St. Louis on the anniversary of its repeal.
Agents stacked parts of a large still and punctured containers at the farm of August Richter, on Denny Road (now Lindbergh Boulevard) about a mile south of Clayton Road in March 1922. Agents raised the place and said they found the still and a concrete vat holding 100,000 gallons of mash in a nearby shed. They disposed of the vat and contents with dynamite. (Post-Dispatch)
Police dump barrels of fermenting corn mash out the windows of a home on Howard Street, just north of downtown, in February 1921. It was a quick method of disposal that surely gave the neighborhood a strong aroma. (Post-Dispatch)
Boys join other onlookers Dec. 6, 1922, in watching thousands of gallons of mash washing into the sewer from a building at 11 South Third Street downtown, where the Interstate 70 depressed lanes now run. Federal agents said they found two stills inside the four-story building that could produce 500 gallons of whiskey daily. They called it one of the biggest raids to date in Missouri. No one was in the building when agents raided it, but agents found fires under the stills and a half-eaten lunch. (Post-Dispatch)
Alton police and citizens show off stills and containers that officers had collected in raids as of Jan. 24, 1923. The city sold the seized materials as scrap, making $98 for the local Salvation Army. (Post-Dispatch)
Federal agents toss beer bottles into the Mississippi River from a boxcar in April 1925. The location is at the foot of Clinton Street, north of downtown. Agents kept finding and destroying booze, and it kept coming by rail, car, truck and steamboat. (Post-Dispatch)
Bootleggers often made counterfeit copies of legitimate, if illegal, liquor brand labels to put on bottles of their homemade stuff. Here is an assortment of counterfeit bottles that were taken from a home at 10th and Wash streets, on the north end of downtown, in April 1925. (Post-Dispatch)
Liquor agents and a St. Louis firefighter drain two hidden vats containing 15,000 gallons that were found in the basement of a bungalow at 5131 Daggett Avenue on The Hill in July 1925. A woman at the home told officers she had no idea how all that booze got into her basement. (Post-Dispatch)
St. Louis County constables used dynamite to blow up a still on an abandoned farm just west of Kirkwood on April 26, 1927. The officers found the operation, untended but still warm, about one-fourth mile south of Manchester Road. The barn was near an abandoned farm house. Found with the still were four vats holding 30,000 gallons of mash. (Post-Dispatch)
New York City Deputy Police Commissioner John A. Leach, right, watching agents pour liquor into sewer following a raid, ca. 1921. After the Mullan-Gage Act was repealed in 1923, New York police were no longer bound to enforce Prohibition. Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.
Helpers stack some of the 500 cases of whiskey that federal officers, known as "dry agents," seized from a vacant building at 1401 North 12th Street in August 1920. Prohibition sought to make America a nation of teetotalers, but too many people still wanted a drink. A new, tougher wave of suppliers simply went underground, and the booze kept flowing. Post-Dispatch file photo
The Jack Daniel Distillery Co. at 3960 Duncan Avenue, near Vandeventer and Forest Park avenues. The company moved here in 1910 after Tennessee went dry. When full national Prohibition took effect in 1920, the distillery held nearly 1,000 barrels of whiskey under the guard of federal agents. In August 1923, well-connected thieves siphoned almost all of the inventory through a hose to trucks down the alley. The company returned to Lynchburg, Tenn., after repeal. The building was demolished in 2005. Post-Dispatch file photo
Prohibition agents seized 800 cases of liquor from a freight car in Dupo, Ill., in December 1932, two months before Congress endorsed repeal of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawing intoxicating spirits. The repeal amendment, the 21st, was adopted in December 1933. By then, many enforcement agencies had given up. Post-Dispatch file photo
A New Year's Eve party somewhere downtown on Dec. 31, 1921. It's likely the cheer includes intoxicating spirits. The accompanying caption on this photo doesn't note the location of the party — a standard practice during Prohibition, if the newspaper files are any indication. Why make it easier for the dry agents? Post-Dispatch file photo
Revelers celebrate the return of legal beer in the first hour of April 7, 1933, at the Hotel Jefferson, at 12th (now Tucker Boulevard) and Locust streets. More than 600 people made reservations for the party there. Post-Dispatch file photo
Federal Prohibition agents pose next to one of the tanks at an illegal distillery they raided in May 1927 in Madison. They said the still, in a one-story frame building at 208 State Street, held vats that could hold 30,000 gallons of mash. No matter how many stills they raided, moonshiners quickly built replacements. Post-Dispatch file photo
The Palm Room at the Chase Hotel, scene of mayhem in the early hours of Jan. 1, 1923, during a New Year's Eve Party. Management had urged people to arrive without liquor, but many did. Prohibition officers raided the party, and outraged revelers reacted with shouts and a few dishes and spoons. Three were winged by a bullet accidentally fired by an officer as he stumbled. Post-Dispatch file photo
Federal agents destroy a shipment of liquor that reached St. Louis in October 1930 in a Canadian Pacific boxcar. Booze still got through. Post-Dispatch file photo
Gus O. Nations, chief federal Prohibition enforcement officer in St. Louis for much of the 1920s. A dedicated dry, he led the raid into the Palm Room at the Chase Hotel during revelry on Jan. 1, 1923. He served until 1928, then became attorney for the Missouri Anti-Saloon League. He died in 1942 at age 49. Post-Dispatch file photo
The first wagon filled with beer leaves the Anheuser-Busch brewery at 12:01 a.m. April 7, 1933, when beer became legal again after 13 years of Prohibition. Congress already had recommended repeal, but changing the Constitution took time. In the meantime, Congress permitted beer by finessing the federal definition of intoxicating beverages, allowing beer with 3.2 percent alcohol content. Full repeal came in December 1933. Post-Dispatch file photo
Nat Goldstein, former St. Louis circuit clerk and influential local Republican, greets well-wishers at Union Station on Jan. 4, 1926, as he and 10 other St. Louisans head for federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan. They were convicted in Indianapolis of siphoning away whiskey from the Jack Daniel distillery in St. Louis three years before. About 4,000 people cheered them as the train made a brief stop in St. Louis. Goldstein and friends had rented a Pullman car for the trip. He served eight months. Post-Dispatch file photo
The Birger gang poses for a group portrait at its hangout, Shady Rest, about 10 miles east of Marion, Ill. Leader Charlie Birger is seated atop the car, wearing a bulletproof vest and holding a Thompson submachine gun. The Birgers battled the Shelton gang for control of bootleg liquor in southern Illinois. In November 1926, the Sheltons hired a bi-plane pilot to fly one of their men over Shady Rest and drop homemade dynamite bombs. Nobody was hurt by the bombs or the return ground fire. Post-Dispatch file photo
Federal agents raided a massive still near Creve Coeur Lake in January 1927. The main building, disguised as a hay barn, held five 2,000-gallon vats for brewing beer and two 18,000-gallon vats to make whiskey. Officers said they believed that the Egan's Rats criminal gang operated the still, which could make $1,500 per day in illegal product. Post-Dispatch file photo
Some of the 25,000 people gathering outside the Anheuser-Busch Co. brewery, South Broadway and Arsenal Streets, on the evening of April 6, 1933. Beer sales would become legal at midnight, and the brewery was ready with 45,000 cases of bottles and 3,000 half-barrels stored in the plant. The trucks would roll at midnight. Other trucks awaiting loading lined Arsenal almost to Jefferson Avenue. Another 10,000 people awaited the first deliveries from Joseph Griesedieck's Falstaff brewery at Forest Park and Spring avenues. (Post-Dispatch)
Workers at Anheuser-Busch load another truck in the early hours of April 7, 1933, the first day of legal beer since 1920. Other trucks awaiting loads lined Arsenal almost to Jefferson Avenue. (Post-Dispatch)
Barmaid Orpha Matthews serves beer in the diner at the American Hotel Annex, 615 Walnut Street. By noon on April 7, 1933, St. Louisans had drunk the first batch dry. Calls for more swamped the switchboards at the Anheuser-Busch and Falstaff breweries, the only ones ready for legal beer. (Post-Dispatch)
Saloonkeeper Leo J. Sullivan pours legal whiskey at his tavern at 226 Collinsville Avenue in East St. Louis shortly after national Prohibition officially was repealed on Dec. 5, 1933. Illinois was ready, but the Missouri Legislature's "dry" members stalled full repeal in Missouri until January 1934. (Post-Dispatch)
Tim O'Neil is a reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Contact him at 314-340-8132 or toneil@post-dispatch.com
