I noticed in the new issue of Great Model Railroads that a historian told a modeler it might not be right to model a brewery during Prohibition.
That's not entirely true. US breweries were allowed to continue brewing "near-beer" with minimal alcohol content.
It appears that little is known these days about how millions of gallons of booze moved by rail in the 1920s and 1930s. But the "liquor traffic" presents lots of modeling and operational opportunities for those modeling both the US and Canada from 1920 to 1933.
Canadian gangsters "laundered" boxcars full of beer and liquor in trains with legitimate cross-border cargo, a system I outlined in my 1987 book King of the Mob (now out of print but available in used bookstores and sites)
It would take too long to outline the system here so I have rewritten the relevant chapter in my modeling blog at Booze carrying boxars during Prohibition
You could have a group of boxcars that are supposed to be shipping hay, turnips or scrap metal and find barrels of beer or crates of whisky among them.
Robin Rowland Author and Photographer Kitimat, BC, Canada
And the Athearn Model A pickups being modeled these days are perfect for 'transports' where no boxcars could go. In my home town of Nevada City, CA, during Prohibition, many of them were fitted with double gas-tanks to haul the liquor incognito. I know this, because that's how my dad hauled my grandma's 'root-beer' between the still in her basement in Nevada City to the storage facilities up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which happened to be the basement of the Catholic Church in Allegheny, CA.
The "Great Experiment" was not only one of the stupidest laws ever passed by Congress, it was the easiest to circumvent. EVERYBODY did it.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
When I was a boy there was an old brick tavern in South Milwaukee WI that had the faded remnants of a painted sign on one wall: "Schlitz The Drink that Made Milwaukee Famous."
I asked my Dad, "shouldn't that be "The BEER that made Milwaukee famous"? That was the slogan I knew.
He said during prohibition the only breweries that survived made malt drinks that were either no alcohol or very low alcohol -- they were malt bevereges but were not true beer. Some breweries also made packages of ingredients to make your own malt drinks but it was common knowledge how to tweak the recipe to make your own beer.
So Schlitz changed its slogan during prohibition, meaning the sign I was seeing in the mid 1960s was well over 30 years old.
Obviously many breweries did not survive Prohibition, but some also branched out into "medicinal alcohol," candies and other malt products. Schlitz itself became known for duck meat (they had a duck farm that was fed spent grain from the brewing process) and fertilizer -- from the ducks (lol) and from their cranberry growing operations.
Dave Nelson
I just picked up the new Signature Press book "Billboard Refrigerator Cars" at a flea market last month. It shows several brewery reefers that were repainted just before Prohibition was repealed using the typical company billboard slogans only replacing "brew" for "beer" ("The brew that made Milwaukee famous" etc.) because they couldn't use the word beer until the ban was actually lifted. As soon as making beer and wine was made legal (which BTW happened before hard liquor production was allowed) they quickly painted out "brew" and replaced it with "beer" - often a little bigger than usual.
When I was up at IronWorld - a history interpretive center on the Mesabi Iron Range in NE Minnesota - they talked about how the old Mesaba Electric interurban railroad ran thru an Indian Reservation that for some reason (tribal sovereignty I suppose) wasn't covered under Prohibition, so could freely sell alcohol on their land. People would buy bottles of booze on the reservation, but as soon as they left the reservation the cars would be stopped and inspected by a federal customs agent. People would tie strings to their bottles as and he was getting on the car they would sneak them out the window. As he was leaving, they'd pull the bottle back up by the string so they were back in the car by the time he was outside.
you could model the brewery but just put a fence across the rails to show it's been closed . but then it wouldn't generate any traffic for your railroad so it kind of takes the point away from having it there in the first place
ernie
ereimer you could model the brewery but just put a fence across the rails to show it's been closed . but then it wouldn't generate any traffic for your railroad so it kind of takes the point away from having it there in the first place ernie
Actually most breweries stayed in business throughout Prohibition, they just cut jobs and converted as best they could to making other products - cereal, cheese, ice cream, non-alcoholic beverages. As noted, non-alcoholic "near beer" was legal. (Of course, people would buy it and put a splash of bootleg hootch in it to liven it up a little!!) For example, I believe Pabst's "Pabst-ett" cheese product was popular enough that they kept making it even after beer production resumed.
BTW limited wine production was allowed at that time, but only for wines made to be used in religious services.
This actually came up in a History of Wisconsin course I had back in college and that if you knew where to look in cities that had large breweries you could still see the rements of the Great Expirement. Of course it also came out, that Wisconsin was the second state to repeal Prohibition. It would have been first but there was a snow storm and the legislature could quite convene as fast as Michigans could.
Trynn_Allen2 This actually came up in a History of Wisconsin course I had back in college and that if you knew where to look in cities that had large breweries you could still see the rements of the Great Expirement. Of course it also came out, that Wisconsin was the second state to repeal Prohibition. It would have been first but there was a snow storm and the legislature could quite convene as fast as Michigans could.
I LOVE that story, LOL! Out here in California, we were a little slower to repeal Prohibition, mainly because nobody paid any attention to it, while it was in force anyway, Especially the local law authorities
It would make sense Michigan would be first to vote to repeal, since they had a horrible time with the rum runners. Michigan has huge areas of shoreline along the Great Lakes system that has Canada on the other side, so groups like Detroit's "Purple Gang" used high speed powerboats to bring booze across from Canada.
p.s. remember the states had to vote to repeal the constitutional amendment that had created Prohibition, but it didn't come into effect until the required number of states had ratified the repeal. Then the ban was lifted nationwide, first on beer and wine and later on all alcoholic spirits.
The area where I live, northcentral Contra Costa County (central California), used to have thousands of acres of grape vines. On some undeveloped sites, one can still see the remnants of the plants, and one can observe other remnants such as the street name "Vine Hill Road." I presume prohibition killed the industry.
Nevertheless, there remains one local vintner in the county: Viano Vineyards located in Martinez, a couple of miles from my home. Almost all of the wines are from grapes grown on the property. It is family owned, now run by the third generation.
Great-grandfather Viano purchased the vineyard in the early 1920s (I'll bet at a bargain price), not too long after prohibition was in effect. I presume the enterprise survived by selling grape juice, much used by persons making their own wine for personal consumption (which was legal).
Mark
In some of my ref. material is the story of the winery (in NY I think) that sold grape juice with a warning on the label --- WARNING: It is illeagal to add 1 pound of sugar and a 1/4 cake of yeast to this grape juice and let it set for two weeks. In other words here is how to make some wine
My father was born in 1897 so he was 23 when prohibition started. He worked for a produce wholesaler in North Texas. He often told of getting a shipment of produce (several box cars) and before the shipment arrived at the yard, his boss would get a coded telegram indicating which corner of which box car had the good stuff. Then Daddy would go to the freight yard the night the cars arrived, break the seal, get the hooch, re-seal the car and when the car was delivered to the warehouse the next morning everything seemed normal. From his tales of the 20's this was perfectly common.
John T in the slow cow pasture
Mark:
A great many of the wineries in the Napa Valley survived Prohibition by their affiliation with the Catholic Church, since wine for 'religious purposes' was exempt from the law. Between that and 'grape juice', they were able to make do until the law was repealed. Evidently the basements of a great many Catholic Churches throughout the state were filled to the brim with vats of ageing California 'religious' wine, a portion of which were returned to the vintners after the Repeal to get them financially back on their feet.
I know that the basement of the Catholic church in Allegheney, CA was the Prohibition repository for almost every kind of 'hooch' brewed in Nevada County, including my grandmother's 'root' beer, which she brewed clear into the 1950's for family consumption. Hoo boy, did THAT stuff deliver a kick!!
Breweries in Alberta in the 1950's were prohibited from advertising beer, Calgary Breweries label was the famous horseshoe and buffalo, so they made ginger ale in approximately the same bottle as the beer and advertised on billboards everywhere, it wasn't TOO obvious, but it worked, also remember, tons of whisky was smuggled into the U.S. and one of the largest distilleries in the U.S. was (and is) a group from Canada.
wjstixIt would make sense Michigan would be first to vote to repeal, since they had a horrible time with the rum runners. Michigan has huge areas of shoreline along the Great Lakes system that has Canada on the other side, so groups like Detroit's "Purple Gang" used high speed powerboats to bring booze across from Canada. p.s. remember the states had to vote to repeal the constitutional amendment that had created Prohibition, but it didn't come into effect until the required number of states had ratified the repeal. Then the ban was lifted nationwide, first on beer and wine and later on all alcoholic spirits.
ROFL and during the winter the rum runners would drive clear, straight across Lake St. Clair (alittle pond between huron and erie ) Windsor-bound, I saw those pics of the prohibition fleet jeeze i bet those could race shoulder to shoulder with race boats @ Thunderfest on the Detroit River back in the day
You have inspired me to go crack a beer...
Thank you!
Craig
DMW
Craig--
Crack one for me too, will you? The supermarket was out of my favorite Pilsner (Gordon Biersch) and I find that I've become an absolute SNOB about it, LOL!