Antique auctions in Wyoming always feature a variety of stoneware crocks. Some still have the original wooden lids. People are often heard commenting that their grandparents and great-grandparents sure made a lot of sauerkraut.
Maybe they did ferment a little cabbage, but more often, in fact, almost universally, those crocks were filled with barley, hops, yeast, and water, and just as often, rhubarb, strawberries, peaches, apples, and most often, grapes.
Modern stoneware crocks are usually one-half to one gallon capacity, the ones that come to us from around a century ago are all three, five, or 10 gallons.
There was a fanatical movement in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Often called the Temperance Movement, it sought to ban alcohol from the United States. That meant beer, wine, brandy, whiskey, Scotch, bourbon, vodka, rum, and gin.
The Rocky Mountain states were among the earliest to enact legislation forbidding alcohol consumption.
Wyoming was the last state in the region, following Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Montana, to institute what became known as Prohibition.
On July 1, 1919, the Cowboy State went dry, several months before a federal prohibition law went into effect.
The Volstead Act was passed by Congress with a two-thirds majority, overriding President Woodrow Wilson’s veto on October 28, 1919. In January 1920, it became the law of the land.
Nationwide prohibition had begun, and with it an unprecedented crime wave that turned ordinary citizens into criminals, and criminals into nationwide networks of organized crime that created instant millionaires.
Those stoneware crocks were just the tools of individual citizens to create a supply of beer and wine for their own use.
Local Fremont County newspapers were initially against the Temperance Movement and groups like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, but they gradually changed their opinions.
Lander Eagle – October 10, 1917 –
“The bottle is more deadly than the submarine. Kaiser Bill and the submarine destroy men’s lives, but King Alcohol and the bottle destroy men’s lives and damn their very immortal souls.
The saloon is the Kaiser’s ally.
If we would win our war against autocracy, we must first win our war against booze.
There is absolutely no question but what the legislature that we elect in this state next November will get an opportunity to ratify or reject National Prohibition. My countrymen, let us elect men to the next legislature who stand four-square for a sober state and a saloonless nation.”
America had recently embroiled in the “Great War” as World War I was originally called. Equating alcohol with the German Kaiser was a leap, but it sold newspapers.
Prohibition arrived, and soon, so did commercial quality stills that distilled a variety of hard liquor in isolated locations across the vastness and isolation of Wyoming.
The miners in Kemmerer grew rich during the 13 years of prohibition.
The tiny Lincoln County town became the biggest producer of spirits from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast. Friendly law enforcement that looked the other way was part of the industry. It was such a haven for moonshine that people across the west began calling Kemmerer and nearby Diamondville, “Little Chicago.”
In Rock Springs, just 90 miles away, the town’s heavy concentration of Italian immigrants began receiving carloads of California grapes on Union Pacific freight trains. They had a factory on Front Street where they fermented thousands of gallons of their trademark “Dago Red” wine.
Local officials, including the Sweetwater County sheriff, turned a blind eye to the operation. Times were tough, demand was high for wine, beer, and booze, and very few Wyoming citizens saw any benefit in prohibition.
Judge T. Blake Kennedy of the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming had his courtroom filled with Volstead Act violators from all of Wyoming’s 23 counties. Kennedy’s docket was so full of alcohol cases that he streamlined the process. If you pled guilty, it was a $200 fine. If you went to trial and were found guilty, you went to prison. The docket cleared quickly.
Annals of Wyoming Volume 54: Spring 1962
“Judge Kennedy enjoyed trying civil cases more than criminal cases, but for the first part of his tenure on the bench, the most frequent case before him was the violation of the Volstead (Prohibition) Act. It is evident from Kennedy’s memoirs that he did not think too much of the “noble experiment.” He disliked the way these cases clogged up his court docket and, as a moderate drinker, he believed prohibition was a poor way to eliminate the abuse of alcohol. Finally, in Judge Kennedy’s opinion, cases brought under the act more often than not involved serious violations of constitutional provisions against improper search and seizure.
Kennedy developed his own method to expedite prohibition cases in his court. When dealing with petty offenders he would fine them $200 if they pled guilty. If they went to trial and lost they ended up with a prison term. For “big-time” offenders the procedure was usually the same but a larger fine might be levied.
In 1921 federal officers announced that in Sweetwater County they had completed the biggest raid of its kind west of the Mississippi River. They arrested 62 persons in the Rock Springs and Green River area. The “Feds” confiscated 1,400 boxes of raisins, 3,000 gallons of “dago red” wine and 1,000 gallons of other intoxicants. The offenders pled guilty and were fined $200.
By 1930 the government’s prohibition campaign was in full operation. Judge Kennedy heard two important cases that year. In the first case, city officials in Thermopolis, Wyoming, were indicted on a conspiracy charge of violating the Volstead Act. Some of the officials pled guilty. They explained all that they had done was to collect the legal license fees from the clubs when they had knowledge that liquor was probably being sold. They had received no money personally as the fees were put into the city coffers in the normal way. They were fined $250 by Judge Kennedy. Later, Judge Kennedy assisted the city officials in regaining their citizenship rights.”
Fremont County was a haven for bootleggers, moonshiners, and with the newly constructed U.S. Highway 20 winding through the Wind River Canyon, it became a central location for brewing, distilling, and transporting the illicit liquids.
Willow Creek Canyon above Lander was one area filled with “shine.” About a mile up the canyon is a small, natural amphitheater created by a slab of limestone that fell off the mountain eons ago, straddling the creek. The open cave was roughly eight feet high and 12 x 15 feet in width and length. It had a level, gravel floor.
Mike Mohr, a respected sheepman and potato farmer, thought this would be an excellent location for a still. He hauled the copper boiler and assorted copper tubes upstream on pack horses and went into business.
Willow Creek ran through the bottom half of the room with clear, fresh water, and the trail rose from 20 to 60 feet above it, creating ideal camouflage.
Mohr was only caught once, in October 1927. He appeared in district court on a charge of bootlegging, but law enforcement could never locate the still. He was likely turned in anonymously by a rival moonshiner.
Stills were located everywhere in Fremont County. Shoshoni and Hudson held the most, but Lysite, Lost Cabin, Moneta, Muskrat, Birdseye, Neble, Pavillion, Crowheart, Dubois, South Pass, and all around the Wind River Reservation and along the ridge of the Owl Creek Mountains, spirits were distilled.
There weren’t many in Riverton and Lander, but there were dozens of “Speakeasies” in those two towns. Popular opinion early in the prohibition era that the two largest towns in the county were rarely raided was political. Complaints were that county officials looked the other way in Riverton and Lander. Sheriff William Burch was a bootlegging zealot, a man committed to ending moonshine in Fremont County. He ended much of the gossip in 1921.
Riverton Review December 7, 1921
EVEN LANDER MAKES “MOON”
STILLS AND BOOZE TAKEN TODAY
“Despite the fact that citizens of our fair neighbor known as Lander have strenuously objected to the accusation that “hootch” was manufactured within the confines of their city boundaries, and there also disposed of, Sheriff Burch, deputies Jap and John Burch, and County and Prosecuting Attorney F. A. Michels last night unearthed a well-developed still and several gallons of “walk a block and fall” liquid.
Four meantime places were raided with excellent results from the officers’ standpoint, and as many gentlemen who claim the county seat as their place of habitation were taken in by the strong arm of the law. Before the day closes the officers are confident of falling into possession of over two hundred gallons of the deadly venom known as moonshine, additional still equipment, and information that will involve still more persons.
Those arrested last night and early this morning are W. B. Hinkle, a brakeman for the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, in whose possession were found three gallons of moonshine; Jack Hays, Jason Watson, and W. T. Newton. At Watson’s place part of a still was found.
Considerable criticism was directed against the county officers for their actions in raiding all parts of Fremont County and passing Lander. They were accused of favoritism and many other false statements were made. But in spite of all this, the officers kept diligently working on their information that a very completely organized whiskey ring was operating in Lander and close vicinity and said nothing lest it should interfere with their plans.
Now that they have been successful in bringing several of the perpetrators to light, they are to be complimented for their patience and unceasing efforts to serve the better people of the county.”
Burch next set his sights on Shoshoni. In a coordinated raid, Burch gathered deputies from Riverton and Lander and added the two stationed in Shoshoni to raid the downtown bar district.
With warrants in hand, they arrested Clarence Woodard, Shoshoni Town Marshall William Tracy, and 23 other men.
Tracy and Woodard were each fined $2,000, equivalent to a hefty fine of $36,000 today.
A year later, in March 1922, in another raid, Burch nailed Woodard and McGinnis on gambling and liquor charges. The District Court in Lander shut down its business for a year, but continued to market bootleg whiskey.