Old Missoula

Tales and Secrets of Montana Rum-Running in the 1920’s

The Good Old Daze by Al Darr.

“It looks like Missoula has a bar for every other citizen,” observed an abstemious tourist from the Midwest the other day.

He then confessed that drinking in his town was largely unadvertised and that people there bought their liquor in bottles exclusively, rather than by the glass.

Missoula actually numbers just 39 commercial bars licensed to sell hard liquor, according to City Clerk Alice Jaqueth, one bar for every 770 citizens. In a former day, when bars were extinct throughout the land, this was the situation here . . .

“Prohibition is here, and it is here to stay – for a thousand years!”

Congressman John M. Evans of Missoula made this prophecy in a speech here Jan. 24, 1922, seven days after the second anniversary of national prohibition and three years after Montana officially went dry.

The congressman wasn’t blind and he wasn’t at all stupid. He was probably caught in a wave of reform sentiment that followed the spectacular Missoula liquor raids of October 1921.

No one who was here will forget the wholesale arrests affected in 15 simultaneous raids led by County Atty. John L. Campbell and inspired by Eugene Van Wert, special investigator for the state attorney general’s office.[1]

It looked to the nontippling minority of Missoula County as though King Booze was finally dead and only the formal obsequies remained. The most notorious offenders’ names, after all, were printed in 14-point type on the front page of The Missoulian. Exposed that way and held up to public censure, who would be crazy enough to go on defying the law of the land?

The Volstead Act was law and had been since Jan. 17, 1920. Montana’s own prohibition statute went on the books Dec. 30, 1918, just in time for New Year’s morning. What’s more, Missoula’s leading lights in the legitimate liquor business had almost to a man announced their prohibition plans, all dry.

Leo Solomon, for example, whose father was a pioneer and wholesale liquor dealer as early as 1881, simply closed his doors.

The Western Montana Liquor Co., established in 1883 as part of the Missoula Mercantile Co., closed up three months before the Montana prohibition law took effect.

The J. E. Power Liquor Co., one of the oldest in the state, turned to manufacturing soft drinks and wholesaling cigars.

Retail dispensers like James Corbett, Tommy Hickey, Thomas H. Thibodeau, Jerry McCarthy and William Lynch hung up their aprons and invested in billiard parlors, cafes and automobiles. John Dougal of the Wine House, Emil Johnson of the Montana Hotel, Pat Callahan of the Norden Hotel, Charles Donovan of the Missoula Hotel readily announced plans for other enterprises – mostly billiards.

Like fate, a fair sprinkling of these names later cropped up in 14-point type on the front of The Missoulian.*

This was because the thirst for 80 proof survived the legal bars. Thirst remained and almost anyone could build a still.

Former Burns Detective Van Wert advertised the bootleg stuff as early as April 23, 1921, in The Missoulian. Under the pseudonym “Mike Smith” he made the rounds straightway after arriving in Missoula.

He then released his initial findings to The Missoulian, listing names, addresses and going rates not only for moonshine but also for sealed Canadian whisky and the services of loose women.

He generally paid 50 cents a drink or $6 a pint for moonshine. The supplies, he said, were ample. Canadian whisky came much higher.

“It’s a great game,” said Van Wert, alias Smith, “and I love to play it.”

Van Wert’s part in the game ended soon after the October raids but the moonshiners continued to play long after they paid their misdemeanor fines and served their 30 days. The market showed no genuine signs of diminishing, this despite the best efforts of the Rev. Joseph Pope, state superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League, and his followers.

A fresh panel of law enforcement officers in Missoula regularly kept up the good work of Van Wert and company throughout the Roaring Twenties. They uncovered liquor caches from Higgins Avenue to Evaro to Lolo Canyon to Milltown, impounded literally thousands of gallons of homemade hootch. And they made arrests.

Fines ranged up to $250 and jail sentences were sometimes for six months. But despite the prior – conviction law, which made it a felony to bootleg after one or more convictions, no Missoula bootleggers were sent to prison. Jury trials ensured that.

Rum-running or whisky smuggling was highly popular in Montana in the early 1920s, but risk, local competition and crooked prohibition agents gradually sapped the ginger from the game.

The Missoulian in 1924 printed the true confession of a young rum-runner who had returned to school. He said if he had the money he made in three years he’d be independent for life but he spent every cent of it being a good fellow and paying for protection, an average of $200 per trip.

“If rum-running ever dies,” he observed sadly, “it will be because these officials have overdone a good thing.”

He nevertheless listed case-lot markups at something over 100 per cent. On his best trip he got $220 a case for rye whisky in Salmon, Idaho, and made $2,600 on the journey.

The bootleg era was punctuated by tragedy.

Omar Dillman, 20, of Indiana was shot to death by prohibition officers on the road between St. Mary’s Lake and Glacier County Oct. 22, 1928. The agents mistook Dillman and his companion for rum-runners, and when the young men panicked and failed to stop on command, the officers opened fire. They found no liquor in the boys’ car. The youths thought the agents were holdup men.

On July 22, 1933, brief months before national prohibition became a memory, Paul A. Read, a federal agent, was shot to death by C. W. Cates between the county jail and the courthouse. Cates, a Missoulian since 1925, was sentenced to hang and the scaffold was prepared, but after several reprieves the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Cates was paroled in March 1956.

Persistence and inventiveness were the chief characteristics of the Missoula bootleg crowd, estimated at one time to number 200 men and women. One moonshiner on Miller Creek had “the most modern equipment, including government hydrometer testing apparatus.”

“Its product ranks high in moonshine quality,” said the officers.

A prominent bootlegger who lived on West Cedar had a six-foot high tunnel from his garage cellar to his basement, and the agents there discovered six full barrels of malt mash, two 10-gallon kegs of finished moonshine and 55 dozen one-pint bottles of beer.

Four miles off the road in Lolo Canyon the law uncovered “a first-class outfit,” including a 35-gallon still, cleverly concealed.

Legal liquor at last made all the fancy stills passe in December 1933. The third state liquor store in Montana was opened here on Railroad Avenue. A second store was opened on Main Street in 1936, and in April 1937 Missoula at last returned to drinks over the bar. Pete Nadeau of the Montana Hotel paid a total of $1,225 in fees for the first license of the new era.

Today in Missoula, it’s practically impossible to come by a jug of moonshine, and no one seems to miss it.

 

The above article appeared in The Missoulian on September 6, 1964.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/349442819/

 

BOOTLEGGER CONFESSES SECRETS OF ILLEGAL TRAFFIC [1924]

RUNNING RUM TO MISSOULA FROM CANADA

How Prohibition Law Is Violated; Tricks of the “Profession”

MANY OFFICERS ARE VENAL

“Fixing” Plays Great Part, He Says; He’s “Broke” – and Going to School.

The article that follows was written for The Sunday Missoulian by a young man who resides in Missoula. It is an unvarnished account of his experiences as a violator of the prohibition laws. In it he expresses an occasional opinion; these opinions are his – as, indeed, is the entire article. – Editorial note[2].

BY A BOOTLEGGER.

I’ve recently completed my third year as a rum-runner. I’ve carried whiskey from Govanlocks[3] to points below Salmon, Idaho; I’ve brought loads from Fernie[4] to all points in western and southern Montana; I’ve handled goods which, at present market prices, would sell for more than $50,000, and I’ve made big profits.

Today I’m broke. The game isn’t worth it. The rum-runner isn’t making the big money today; neither is the bootlegger, though he is given the credit for it. It’s the prohibition officer, in all styles, shapes and forms, who is really profiting by prohibition, while the runner or the seller takes the chances and, in the end, pays the penalty.

So I’m back in school. I guess if I had today what I’ve made during those three years, I would be independent for life. But the runner has to be too much of a good fellow, he has to pay out too much in the form of graft, his personal expenses are too high, for, in order to avoid suspicion, he is forced to stop at the best of hotels, patronize the best of restaurants, wear good clothes and, most important of all, he has to keep his car in the best of condition.

I’m back in school to get another start. I’m not ashamed of the fact that I once was a rum-runner, for the game is as honorable as many or our so-called respectable businesses, and it certainly is more fascinating. You can’t imagine anything more exciting than to be at the wheel of a car that is being chased by “high-jackers” or government men, and all the while know that capture means probable imprisonment and the confiscation of your machine and the whiskey in which you have invested a small fortune.

If you are looking for thrills, try rum-running!

As I have said, I got my start a little more than three years ago. A friend and I, who had seen others around us become what we considered to be wealthy, decided also to take advantage of prohibition and make our fortune.

We had enough to buy a fairly good car and so, with another man who was “on the inside,” went into Govanlocks to get our first load.

Govanlocks, since closed by prohibition in Saskatchewan, is a little town of about 500 inhabitants, 14 miles over the border. Nearly all of its residents made their living then through the whiskey trade.

Buying the First Cargo.

Strangers in Govanlocks were eyed rather suspiciously. Although we were with a man well known to the town, we were watched closely as we walked down the Main street to Dealer’s row, where small, unpreposing (sic) signs up over the doorways of four heavily-barred little windows, announced that the owners were “Liquor exporters.”

We entered one of them – the one of the two, according to our friend, that was trustworthy – and found ourselves in a small-barewalled room. The owner, one of the group of Americans who seem to have almost a monopoly on the liquor-selling business in Canada, hurried up to greet us, and several men, with bulges on their hip pockets, shifted in their chairs. We knew there were others watching us, too, for even the dealers are not immune from the “high-jacker.”

Our dealer host offered us a drink – the usual custom, for a drunken rum-runner is not too particular about what he buys. He then brought out his price list. We looked it over and made several comments, and then he led us into the sample room.

Although I’ve seen such scenes too often since to get a thrill out of these sights, I shall never forget that room. High up on the walls were bottles of almost all known liquors – shelves upon shelves of them. The dealer had several bottles open on the table – among them was the brand we desired. We tasted it, and then gave our order.

We paid in advance for the liquor – no checks either, and each bill of large denomination was scrutinized with especial care – for some rum-runners are also counterfeiters.

The first order, and several that followed, were filled in Govanlocks, although later, the government required that no liquor for export be sold at cities nearer than 100 miles from the border. Our orders were then telephoned to Regina, and brought up on the “dinky” train that arrived late in the afternoon.

We watched the “sewer” put our order into sacks – for even “reliable” dealers are not averse, sometimes, to slipping in a few bottles of an inferior grade. Twenty-two sacks were filled – with 12 quart bottles to the sack or case – all were piled neatly into the rear of the car, covered by a piece of canvas, and we were ready to be off.

The First Protection Money.

It was at this point that we paid out the first protection money. The dealer, if he knows you as a good customer, will send two or three men with you to escort you below the line and keep off government men and “high-jackers.” But it is always good judgement to give the dealer a ten or a twenty, and so we slipped a bill into his hands, and with our guard sitting in the rear, left Govanlocks behind.

We had come into Canada on a 30-day tourist’s permit, granted us at the little Canadian government post just above the line. We had given the mounted policeman there the usual sign – “I’ll be back this way in a couple of days” – and the usual tip of $10. He, too, had followed the usual custom of offering a drink and protection.

We drove cautiously enough past the Canadian post and then down across the bridge on the border past the U. S. post. We made no attempt at speed – it is too suspicious-looking. And so the officials at the U. S. side of the line let us pass as if we were but a party of tourists, but I have learned since these same officials were “fixed” by the dealers.

Once outside the view of the post, we began to show speed. We slowed up when we came to large towns, and usually left them by an indirect route, but once outside, we always “opened ‘er up.” At Havre, we dropped our two guards, and the three of us, taking turns at driving or at sleeping on the rear seat, made an otherwise uneventful trip to Butte.

At every place of importance, however, we left “protection” money. We had the advantage of having one with us who knew the game and the officials on the route. The green man, probably, would have been arrested long before he finished the trip. Our friend dropped tens and twenties lavishly; we were introduced to many city, county, state and federal officials before many trips had been completed, and some of them introduced themselves. All of them left us alone, however, after we had “shelled out.”

Stopped 20 Times; Arrested Once.

I have been stopped, I should say, 20 times with a car full of whiskey. I was arrested only once, but my protection money averaged $200 a trip.

If the rum-running business ever dies, it will be because these officials have over-done a good thing. The rum-runner, in their hands, is a play-thing. He pays protection money to one man, while another, envious because he is not in on the rake-off, “knocks him over.” If a rum-runner becomes prosperous, his protection rates are raised, and if he complains, he is arrested, and his cargo and car are confiscated. Every official has his price and it must be paid.

Government officials, especially, have gone into the business of grafting from the runner on a big scale. One prohibition officer “resigned” a state office of importance recently because his activities in this, and even in the liquor-selling business, had attracted national attention. Rumors among the runners were that he had an interest in more than 100 bootlegging joints and was making “big graft.” It was also said it cost him something like $100,000 to get out of the mess.

Protected in the Garages.

The garage in which you leave your car overnight – if you care to make the trip leisurely – also demands protection money, though they give service for it, and watch the machine closely. One garage in a northern Montana city even has a special room for rum-runners’ automobiles.

The wise runner, however, stops at no garages, or even in towns along the way. He takes an extra supply of gasoline and oil on the trip to Canada and hides it. He gets it again on his way back, and makes as few stops in cities as possible – for towns are the danger spots.

False bottoms in cars, and gasoline tanks, copper inner tubes, and other devices used once by the rum-runner to hide his cargo, are obsolete now. The runner has discarded them for two reasons: If he is at the game long, revenue officers will know him, and he can’t carry enough that way to make it pay.

The wise runner keeps his car in the best condition possible. No machine that has not been run at least several thousand miles can stand the wear and tear that the runner puts upon it, and so he must first purchase his car and then break it in. In my three years as a runner, I owned and used seven new Studebakers, a Ford and a Cadillac.

Three Routes Into Missoula.

There are three routes that have been used by runners coming into Missoula from Govanlocks. One of them is by way of Havre, Great Falls, Helena and Butte, which by the way, is the big distributing point. The other branches off after passing Havre to White Sulphur Springs, then on to Three Forks and Butte. These routes require a running time of about 24 hours. But today, the greater part of them are coming in from the west – from Fernie, in British Columbia, which is still wet – and they can make the trip in about 10 hours from the line, going by way of Eureka, Kalispell and Polson.

Fernie is about 40 miles over the line – a town a good deal larger than Govanlocks, but of the same type. They do business there on a somewhat bigger scale and each house has one or two men who do nothing else but sew the whiskey in sacks. They don’t have to go out of town for their stock, for they have it right there.

The affect (sic) of American competition is making itself felt greatly in the rum-running business. Prices were low at the beginning of the summer, but because of unusual activity on the part of prohibition officers, have risen recently. The present price list in Fernie, less dealer’s “tip” necessary to get you over the line, would probably be as follows:

Canadian ryes and Scotches from $37.50 to $45 a case (short quarts).

Hiram Walker, $37.50 a case.

Canadian Club, $40.

Peter Dawson, $40.

Scotch Highland, $40.

Gold Seal, $43.50.

Champagne and French liquors in bottles holding a little more than a pint and yet not a short quart, $65 to $70.

Blue Ribbon (rectified) $57.50.

Sunnybrook quarts, $67.50.

Old Guard, an Irish bourbon not fit to drink, $50.

Pebbleford, $60.

Old Oscar Pepper and Old Taylor, $60.

Old Antique, $72.

Joel B. Frazier, $60.

Synthetic gin in Gordon bottles, $50.

Prince Albert gin, $40.

Lethbridge 6 per cent beer (purchased only by tourists because of its bulk) 50 cents a bottle.

Wines are not purchased by the runner, unless he has a special order for them, because they are unprofitable. Such whiskies as Old Crow and Red Top are now practically unobtainable.

Fake Labels Are Plenty.

The Canadians have no good bourbon now and so most of the stuff sold in the states as such really has been rectified two or three times. The dealer has no trouble in purchasing seals for quart or pint bottles, printed, by the way, by a Regina newspaper, at two cents apiece, if he buys in lots of 50 or 100. Caps and foil for any particular brand sell for five cents apiece; and labeled bottles can be purchased in gross lots at seven cents for pints and nine cents for quarts.

Bottles of any description can be bought, although the fancy ones sometimes sell as high as 15 cents each. Anything needed to “fake” is easily obtainable, and even the rum-runner himself is sometimes the victim of an unscrupulous dealer, who sells him rectified whiskey for bonded goods.

The trade in synthetic gin is increasing, and I think, will soon be taken up more and more in America, for it would provide an easy way for breweries to make money.

You may ask now, “What price does the runner get for his whiskey once he gets into town?”

Law of Supply and Demand.

This question cannot be answered directly, for even he is regulated by the law of supply and demand. Bootleggers today hesitate to take full cargoes – the runner can easily dispose of his cargo in small quantities, but in doing that, he takes a greater risk both in selling and in storing it. And so I have known runners in a pinch to sell whiskey at the price they had paid in Canada – $65.

This summer, however, ryes sold from $80 to $110 a case; Bourbons from $100 to $135; and Scotches at about $110. Once, however, I got $220 a case in Salmon, Idaho, for a full load of Sunnybook and made $2,600 on the trip. That was my best trip.

Often the runner is called upon to replenish the cellars of millionaires or furnish the liquid refreshments for those who would have a little party. A southern Montana man, wealthy, gave us enough money, plus $20 a case for expenses, to get him some French liquors and a few choice brands of whiskey. All our money was tied up in another load, but this man, after trusting us, gave us a straight price of $130 a case on everything we brought, and enabled us to make a handsome profit.

The Montana Taste Changes.

The truth is, though, that the tastes of Montanans for liquor are changing. Blue Ribbon, once popular, is now not a good seller. Pebbleford or Sunnybrook are the most popular of the bourbons, though Scotches are well liked.

Prices are likely to rise again before the close of the winter, for the rumor is that “high-jackers” will again be active, and that will discourage the trade.

My experiences in the game have been the things I treasure most. During those three years, I was shot at often but I found that a man, whether he knows it or not, has a highly developed sense of intuition and can always get away. One night, just after we had left the border, three cars came behind us and commenced a chase. It was all a new country in which I was driving, for we had taken a different road that trip, but intuition told me where to find a detour, wait until the “high-jackers” passed, then how to keep on this side road and give them the slip.

Often I have changed my plans at the last minute, or have taken a new road in preference to one I knew better, and always I found that in doing it I had avoided possible arrest. The one and only time my car was confiscated I think I acted against my intuition.

Those guards furnished by the dealer often come in handy. One night, just the day after a man had been killed by “high-jackers,” we were coming into Havre, when three cars, which were in the road in front of us, suddenly formed themselves into a triangle and stopped.

We pulled our guns and drove up a bit closer and then one of the two guards stuck his head out. The “high-jackers,” who really were getting paid also by the dealers, gave us the high sign then, and we went on.

Another time, we were crossing the viaduct at Havre, a favorite spot for the government official. We were going slowly, when suddenly a man stepped out about 50 feet from us and signaled for us to stop. One of the guards then looked out from the side at him, and he stepped back on the walk and let us pass. He, too, had been “fixed” by the dealers.

“You’ve spent your ten bucks to good advantage this time, partner,” the guard remarked as we passed the prohibition officers by.

There are no rings, buttons or clubs among the rum-runners, but, on the whole, they are a genial fraternity of good fellows.

Three years ago, I guess there were 300 of them working in Montana. Today, I would say there aren’t many more than 30. There’s too much local competition, too much risk and too much throat-cutting by the prohibition officials. The rum-runner makes big money, but he has to spend it.

The rum-runner today, too, is of a different type than his predecessor of three years ago. Today he finds himself hunted everywhere, and as a result, he is becoming more desperate. Three years ago, he hesitated to take a life! Today he is ready at all times to shoot to kill.

 

The above article appeared in The Sunday Missoulian on January 6, 1924.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/352383892/

 

Below is another article regarding Montana rum-runners that appeared in The Daily Missoulian about 2 months later, on March 23, 1924. The official quoted in this article was Addison K. Lusk, the Federal Prohibition Director in Montana. Mr. Lusk was a Georgetown University graduate who came to Montana not long after the turn of the century. He worked at the Beckwith Mercantile in St. Ignatius for several years, and represented Missoula County in the state legislature for 2 terms. He was a veteran of WW1. He was appointed the Federal Prohibition director in 1923. He later was business manager for a Helena newspaper and then worked for the Montana Light & Power Company. He lived at Polson when he died in 1939. His brother, Frank S. Lusk, was a wealthy railroad contractor and president of the First National Bank in Missoula. Banker Lusk was a controversial local figure in the mold of another Missoula millionaire, A. B. Hammond.

 

LIQUOR CONSUMPTION IN STATE DECREASES

Addison K. Lusk Addresses Woman’s Club; Sentiment Better, He Claims.

“There are 794 permittees in Montana for the dispensing of intoxicating liquors, more than at any previous time, yet, in 1923 there were 67 fewer prescription books issued and nearly 5,000 fewer gallons of liquor withdrawn than during 1922,” asserted Addison K. Lusk, prohibition director for Montana, in an address to the Missoula Woman’s club at the Masonic temple yesterday afternoon.

“I come to you, not as a fanatic, not as a professional reformer, but as a federal officer,” Mr. Lusk said in opening his talk. He said that he sought to obtain greater charity toward the men who are doing the best in a hazardous work so that unwarranted criticism might be allayed. He also cautioned his hearers that “no law can be violated in order to enforce another law. Society has certain rights, and they must be protected.”

He stated that the problems of the enforcement officials were threefold: Smuggling, illicit manufacturing and the public nuisance evil. In this connection he pointed out that there are 55 counties in Montana, which means that there are 55 sheriffs and 55 county attorneys with whom he must seek co-operation.

Limited as to Men and Money.

“My field force,” he stated, “consists of 12 men who operate under limited expense accounts. Therefore, we are really meant to supplement local enforcement – not to enforce Montana’s laws, and, on account of the few officers in our department, we must confine our activities to the source of supply and to securing abatement action against public nuisances.”

Mr. Lusk then told of the procedure by which rum runners secured their supplies from the Canadian export houses, and pointed to the added difficulties enforcement officers encounter on account of the terrain of Montana. The American port of entry from Canada is at Sweet Grass, he stated, and there is no other on the Montana line. In the western section of the state, he said, the mountains enabled the runners to conceal themselves and gave them every advantage over the officer.

He dwelt only briefly upon the illicit manufacture of liquor – but long enough to show how the moonshiners could conceal themselves in the mountains and could make themselves inaccessible.

Nuisance and Abatement

He then turned to the nuisance evil and the abatement proceedings.

“One must have a search warrant to enter these places,” he stated. “So we work with under-cover men, an expensive, slow, tedious process. But one with big aims – abatement proceedings. In the state of Montana there have been 35 places closed and 72 more to be heard. We have closed four in Missoula.”

Sentiment in Montana toward prohibition is growing better,” he continued, “and I do not think it will be long before the young boys and girls will get over the fad of taking a drink.”

Mr. Lusk then pointed to the results of government regulation in Canada, which he asserts is a failure, and then criticizes the work of present-day juries. He praised the officers of Missoula county and city for their cooperation with federal officials, stating that “we made 70 arrests in 58 of which we had direct co-operation.”

He upbraided society for its indifference to prohibition enforcement, whereby people will even conceal violations, whereas they rebel against practically every other crime.

Bootlegger Most Dangerous.

“The bootlegger will go out of business,” he said in concluding, “when the best citizen ceases to be his best customer. I consider the bootlegger most dangerous to society, for he and the white slaver, and the narcotic smuggler are the same, changing their occupations with the seasons. . .”

 

The above is quoted from The Daily Missoulian on March 23, 1924.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/352387058/?terms=rum-runner

 

*Al Darr referred to The Missoulian’s list of those arrested in the 1921 raids. The list appears below:

 

“Among the citywide arrests made were the following:”

“Rube” Dishman, Pastime club

Orin Dishman, Pastime club.

Ray Howard, 136 West Main street.

Nels Mickelson, “Exchange.”

H. R. Thibideau, Garden City club,

Ed. Marcure, French Club.

Anton Dolum, Western Hotel Bar.

Emil Johnson, Norden Hotel Bar.

Charles Mattson, B & M.

Charles Sheer, 209 West Railroad street.

John Gotta, 111 West Railroad street.

Ed. Boness, Western Hotel Bar.

Hans Olson, Norden Hotel Bar.

John Dugal, Montana Hotel Bar.

David Osberg, Double Front.

William E. Brown, B & M.

Albert Miller, Pastime club.

Harold Anderson, Montana Bar.

Frank Therriault, French Club.

Mike Peccia, Europe Bar.

Paul Quesnelle, charged with “selling.”

Pete Dumphy, Our House.

John D’Orazi, Europe Bar.