Happy 21st Amendment Day
Eighty years ago today, the failed experiment of Prohibition ended, ending scenes like this one - a Boston police officer with a raided still in South Boston.
Throughout Prohibition, news photographer Leslie Jones chronicled the ultimately futile efforts of lawmen to stem the tide of illegal booze. The BPL has a collection of his photos, including this one of federal agents dismantling "the most elaborate joint ever built in Boston," at 153 Causeway St. in 1932:
Rum runner loaded with $175,000 worth of booze seized in Dorchester Bay by the Coast Guard in 1932:
Boston Police Supt. Michael Crowley after a raid on a Tremont Street speakeasy in 1930:
Police from Division 9 unload seized casks:
Police dump beer out of a Dorchester window in 1934:
Photos used under this Creative Commons license.
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old boston cop
it looks like he is waiting for the photographer to clear out so he can drink lunch.
My grandfather would make his
My grandfather would make his own beer in the basement. As a child my mother would hear the bottles "popping" from the cellar. What a silly law Prohibition was, same with the way they treat Marijuana now a days. Luckily they are lightening up for certain amounts of marijuana possession.