There were many houses of ill repute in Fremont County during prohibition, too. The White House in Shoshoni, the Blue Goose in Riverton, and the Hudson Hotel, which still stands on the west side of the highway with a dark brown sign reading “Rooms” above the tan colored two story building.
Hudson was the home of Frank Ninkovich, perhaps the most prolific bootlegger in all of Fremont County, at least based on his arrest record.
Ninkovich had connections in Kemmerer. He arranged trucks to haul equipment from Kemmerer to Hudson and occasionally moonshine. He worked with Dan Svilar on legitimate business deals, bringing in carloads of sugar and fruit to Hudson on the railroad.
He sold the sugar and fruit to local still operators and had a couple himself spread around the town.
Moonshine develops a distinctive odor during processing, depending on the ingredients used. Ninkovich and many others often burned tires to mask the smell during the distilling process.
Courier Dubois May 28, 1927
OFFICERS MAKE A RAID ON HUDSON
GET THREE STILLS
Town raided Monday night by state and federal officers securing a good haul
”Pete Jeniro, Tony Ocha and Cornelo Rotolo of Hudson were gathered into the net Monday night by Spencer Gaylord, undersheriff, J. W. Thompson, deputy sheriff of Shoshoni, and Ray Ivester, federal prohibition officer, in a raid which began Monday afternoon at four o’clock and terminated Tuesday morning at 1:30, says the Lander Journal. Three big outfits for the manufacture of illicit liquor were taken with ample evidence which officers believe will convict the alleged violators.
Deputy Thompson had been on the watch for some time and Sunday night he laid out to see the operations, recognizing men from Lander, Riverton and Shoshoni coming for the liquor and gaining much interesting information in the prosecution of further violations of the law.
In the search of Peter Jeniro’s place they found a 50 gallon still in the garage at the rear of his residence with seven barrels of mash, coil and stove ready to operate. No liquor was found but from the 82 empty sugar sacks which they discovered they believe they have terminated the operating of a plant that has been going for some time and furnishing a large supply.
Tony Ocha had his 30 gallon still in the cellar of his residence. Four barrels of mash and two quarts of liquor were taken.
Cornelo Rotolo operated at home also and a 40 gallon still and five barrels of mash were found in an outbuilding at the rear of the lot. Indications showed that he should have liquor about the place but strict search proved fruitless until one of the officers noticed the end of a pipe corked with the top flush with the floor. This was located under the sink and was not easily discovered.
Knowing this pipe must lead somewhere they made for the cellar and found nothing. The walls were solid and there was no container anywhere. Starting to dig outside the wall there was no evidence until they got down a reasonable depth where there was a barrel. Going back to the cellar and working on the wall they found a secret slide which revealed a faucet. The barrel was full and the 50 gallons of liquor made the biggest haul of the night.
The men and evidence are at the county jail and court being in session a speedy trial is expected. Under the new law possession of a still is a penitentiary offense.”
Rotolo paid his bond and was released. He was arrested again while awaiting trial on his first charge. Rotolo moved his operation north of Riverton across the Wind River from Neble. This time, he dug an escape tunnel from his cabin. On a tip in June, officers raided the cabin and discovered 2,000 gallons of mash and a 100-gallon still, one of the largest ever found in Fremont County. They found 120 gallons of whiskey buried in 10-gallon kegs near the river. He was arrested, tried, found guilty, and was actively appealing the sentence the following year.
On March 1, 1927, the “Wyoming Still Law” was enacted. Introduced in the Wyoming Senate, it called for a mandatory one-year sentence in the state penitentiary for possession of a still, with a maximum of three years.
In the ensuing 10 months, 17 men were sentenced to prison in Rawlins, with 18 more due to appear in court. Newspapers of the day called it a rousing success and claimed Wyoming was the “driest state in the Union.” It wasn’t. It was perhaps the least prosecuted state, as the registry of offenders had no one listed from Albany, Sweetwater, Natrona, or Laramie County, the most populous.
Interest in prosecuting bootleggers began to wane in the late 1920s. America was growing tired of the “Great Experiment.” Organized crime grew with each passing year, alcohol consumption increased when it was made illegal, and normally, law-abiding citizens were now criminals. Many of the judges didn’t back off.
Wyoming State Journal – May 22, 1929
DISCHARGED OFFICIAL OF STATE IMPLICATED IN LIQUOR CONSPIRACY
W. C. Irving and 28 Others Arraigned on Federal Charges
Irving Was Ousted by Governor Emerson
“Sensational revelations were contained in the formal announcement Saturday by A. D. Walton, United States District Attorney at Cheyenne, in connection with the indictment by the federal grand jury of W. C. Irving, former state law enforcement commissioner, and twenty-eight alleged moonshine manufacturers, distributors, “payoff men,” and collection agents.
The twenty-eight other defendants are charged with conspiracy to defeat the national prohibition law in Wyoming.
Fourteen of the indicted persons have already been arrested. Federal authorities have thus far been unable to locate Irving and James Ader of Parco, claimed by federal investigators to be the chief conspirators”
The arrested men were from southwest Wyoming and Thermopolis. With a token Cheyenne man indicted. There were still none from Albany or Natrona County.
- John Murphy, Rock Springs
- Mike Jaklich, Thermopolis
- A. E. Schmidt, Thermopolis
- William Montgomery, Wamsutter
- Otto Jahn, Kemmerer
- William C. Graham, Evanston
- Morris Robinson, Rock Springs
- H. Hansen, Cheyenne and Rawlins
- Frank Boyd, Rawlins
- Tony Kunlis, Rawlins
- Eddie Soares, Rawlins
- Eliseo Cnis, Rawlins
- Bert Maxon, Rawlins
Federal investigators presented evidence that, while state law enforcement commissioner, Irving, with Ader as chief collector and assisted by several deputy collectors, imposed a flat-rate payoff of $75 a month on speakeasies in Rawlins.
Reports reached Governor Frank C. Emerson, prompting him to discharge Irving and later request that federal agents investigate.
Payoffs were prevalent among officials across Wyoming. The amount of the bribes varied with the size of the operation. Officials in Hot Springs County on the take charged a dollar a gallon to keep quiet.
Chief collector Ader was discovered to be the owner of a speakeasy disguised as a pool hall in Parco (now Sinclair) known as the “Bucket of Blood.”
The battle against alcohol was fruitless. The nation was growing tired of the entire idea, and the Great Depression just enhanced the feeling of governmental intrusion into the lives of ordinary citizens.
Local newspapers, once in support of prohibition, began describing the futility of the ongoing battle.
Wyoming State Journal – May 1, 1929
“A conglomeration of copper boilers, coils and tanks, bottles, jugs and kegs, taken in numerous raids conducted by enforcement officers in various parts of Fremont County during the past few months, furnished the “props” for an elaborate setting for a “wild liquor” finishing party staged here Monday afternoon in the spacious rear of the court house and jail gardens when Sheriff Bob Gaylord “shot the works” on as wicked an assortment of “greased lightnin’” as was ever “aged” in a tobacco juice and old harness flavoring plant.
Pop, pop, bang, shouted the broken bung holes of oaken kegs; gurgle, gurgle, sighed half a thousand bottles, fruit jars and stone jugs, as their stoppers were removed and liquid fire danced its merry way to the cesspool especially prepared for the occasion, when Sheriff Gaylord and his two deputies, Spencer Gaylord and James W. Thompson, lit the footlights on the poison liquor drama staged under orders of District Court Judge R. H. Fourt.
Before three court witnesses and a small company of spectators who occupied the “orchestra circle,” gay flames licked up three hundred gallons of assorted trouble. Sharp axes tore gaping holes in the stout sides of copper vessels, and heavy sledges knocked a hundred kegs for a “row of joss houses” in as neat a piece of wrecking as we have seen since Carrie Nation ran amuck in the Union Station at Pittsburgh a long time ago.
For two hours the atmosphere reeked with groggy alcoholic fumes as axe armed officials assaulted hundreds of helpless pints, quarts and gallons. What a disgraceful ending of an aged in the charcoal career for numerous ten-gallon kegs of red eye as they were “put to bed” with a thousand bottles of humble “brewed in the home” stomach wash.
Colorful and gay, they had been hoping to feel the cudgel of a multitude of hip pockets and to kiss the lips of thirsty inebriates, when relentless John Law put a sack full of wrenches in the works. It was an ignoble ending for this hopeful corn and hops delirium juice which was loaded to the guard rails with power and meanness and capable, when unharnessed, of breaking hearts, smashing friendships and abetting murder.
Maggot swarming mash, whiskey liberally mixed with dead cockroaches, wine that was curdled like writhing snakes, contributed to the nauseating outpouring of hundreds of gallons.
Tons of “squirrel” hootch. “Yet there will be more of it made, and more of it sold, and more of it confiscated,” remarked one of the witnesses to the sheriff’s party.
Dogs, several packs of them, staged some lively battles on the sidelines of the courthouse property while the air was charged with the fumes of fighting booze. Chickens in nearby enclosures were doing cakewalks and standing on their heads, while the boys upstairs in the jail house were compelled to seek their cots as the battle of kegs and jugs went on.
The destruction of liquor making paraphernalia and large quantities of finished product brings to naught the efforts of more than one hundred people who, at one time or another during the past six months, have been tempted to ignore the law for the sake of the money that seems to be in the business.
It is claimed that where one still is captured, another springs up to take its place, for the reason that as long as people want liquor there is someone who will take a chance to supply it. And so, the struggle goes merrily on.
Monday’s party had its picture by Photographer Wheeler with Sheriff Gaylord, the two deputies and Judge Wells flanking the scenery. Witnesses for the court were Judge Wells, Attorney Frank Michels and Geo. R. Adam.
Tuesday morning the chickens had ceased their foolishness and neighborhood dogs had returned to their kennels. The spectators to John Barleycorn’s funeral had all sobered up and were “back on their feed.”
There will be no more shows of the kind staged in the jail house back yard until the vaults are filled up again and the copper market has returned to a normal condition.”
Prohibition finally ended with the passage of the 21st Amendment in 1933. The 18th Amendment, the Volstead Act, remains the only amendment to the United States Constitution ever repealed.