A while back I wrote about my great-uncle’s experience at the dentist in the early 1920s.  Here’s what he remembered about Prohibition.

During the 1930s there was extensive bootlegging going on in Lee County.  You could spot a bootlegger’s car when it was empty because the trunk end of the vehicle was riding higher than the front end of the car.  The car would then level itself when it had a load in the trunk.  This high end car was a common sight in Lee County.

One of the events that drew a crowd of people was when the sheriff’s crew had captured a still.  All of the equipment and the liquor were brought to the sidewalk in front of the courthouse for public destruction.  The equipment was broken up with axes.  The bottles of the finished product were broken by hand against the cement curb.  It was almost unbelievable, but I have seen crazy people take the jar caps and scoop the liquid from the street gutter and drink it.  Horrible as it was, it actually occurred.

–Joe F. Stuckey, Jr.


Posted by in Downtown, Law and Order