Among other things, this new year of ours --- 2019 --- marks a centennial milestone for one of the United States' great failed social experiments: Nationwide prohibition as enshrined in the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (repealed in 1933 as a bad idea).
Nebraska, on Jan. 16, 1919, became the 36th state to ratify the 18th --- ensuring that a year and a day later, on Jan. 17, 1920, the United States would go bone dry, sort of. The 18th Amendment banned the production, sale and transportation of demon rum --- although not the actual drinking thereof. (The Volstead Act, which enforced the amendment, officially exempted alcohol used for medicinal, cosmetic and religious purposes).
Now Iowa already was bone dry at the time --- sort of. Absolute prohibition had been imposed by the state Legislature during 1884, but that bet was hedged with passage in 1894 of what was called the mulct law, giving a complex form of local option to counties. The Legislature rescinded the mulct law in 1915, imposing absolute prohibition again --- but, an amendment to the Iowa Constitution that would have enshrined prohibition failed to win voter approval by a few hundred votes during 1917. Still, prohibition remained in effect legislatively --- and Lucas County law enforcement officers had been chasing bootleggers already for more than 30 years.
Lucas County's chief law enforcement officer as 1919 dawned was the capable Charles C. Lyman, a grandnephew of Sheriff Gaylord Lyman, famously shot to death by horse thief Hiram Wilson (subsequently lynched when a mob threw him out a courthouse window with a rope around his neck) back in 1878. Charles, when first elected in 1903 had been at 28 the county's youngest sheriff. He served until 1910, then took a break, but had been re-elected during the fall of 1918 and would serve again until 1922.
As nationwide prohibition loomed and as the nationwide bootlegging industry was gearing up to meet the challenge, there was a flurry of activity as dealers and imbibers rushed to avoid a drought by stocking up. Which is why four suitcases of whisky appeared at the depot in Chariton during mid-February 1919, as reported in The Herald-Patriot of the 27th under the headline, "Big Haul of Booze":
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Bootleggers are in deep mourning this week because Sheriff Lyman and Deputy Knotts grabbed a big consignment of booze here Monday. the liquor consisted of four suitcases filled to the brim with pints and half-pints of the famous or infamous "Old Taylor," a brand of whiskey which has put many a man soundly to sleep.
The suitcases were taken from the south branch train Monday afternoon and placed at the north end of the depot, presumably with the understanding that the owners would pick them up and spirit them away. Before this could be accomplished, however, Sheriff Lyman and Deputy Knotts were on hand and took possession of the shipment.
The liquor is estimated to be worth $400 at current bootleg prices, but the owner may have same by appearing at the county jail and proving property, a proceeding not likely to occur. The liquor will be tried soon, condemned and destroyed.
It is said that many shipments are going over the country and when the roads get so that autos may travel easily and rapidly it will take all the ingenuity of all the officers to keep the traffic within bounds. The certain drought that is to hit the whole country shortly accounts for the desire of many booze-fighters to lay in a store of the contraband stuff.
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Many Lucas Countyans, some considered respectable and others not so much, would become experts in the bootleg trade during the next decade --- and stills would dot our sylvan hills and valleys. This was kind of an opening act. Exciting times would follow.
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