NORMAN V.
KELLY
I was recently part of a TV
Documentary on Prohibition here in Peoria .
In my opinion it missed the point and concentrated mainly on local myth. I will
give the Producers credit for not telling the viewers all about the Speakeasies
we were supposed to have had here during Prohibition. The simple truth is that
they were correct; we had none. In September of 1917, The Lever Act, a phony
Conservation Act, written and perpetuated by Wayne B. Wheeler, the Anti Saloon
leader, shut our distilleries and breweries down. This was during the First World War, and it
was said to be a temporary act. Of curse
that was a lie and when our Doughboys came back home to Peoria their jobs were gone. Those jobs would not return until Prohibition
ended with the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933. Your relatives and mine suffered a tremendous
financial burden during that time, I can tell you that.
Next came the Eighteenth
Amendment, the Volstead Act, and the Alcohol Capital of the World, Peoria , Illinois
was gone; it happened that quickly.
Thirteen long years of the most corrupt, dangerous, murderous period of
time in America ’s
history followed. It spawned political
corruption in our government, both locally, statewide and across the United States .
Our enforcement officials came close to allowing the country to disintegrate;
some say it most definitely did.
THE SOFT
DRINK PARLOR
Booze flowed into Peoria like a dam broke lose up north in Canada , and
Mayor Woodruff worried about
the lost revenue from taxes and the sale of his precious Liquor License. He allowed the taverns to open. That’s right!
All those dark fun places suddenly had a chance to wake up the downtown
area and that is exactly what they did.
Remember they could not sell whiskey or beer, except for some watered
down versions that Peorians called ‘Colored Water.’ But open they did and in fact I fear I might
bore you but here is how that happened. One by one the saloons magically opened
and turned into Soft Drink Parlors. 1921-66,
1922-147, 1923-161, 1925-115, 1926-22, 1928-22, 1929-4, 1933-38 and when 1934 rolled around
Prohibition was over and we had 4 left open. By 1940 Peoria was back in the
booze, beer, gambling and prostitution
business with 242 taverns and a population of 105,010 people in our city limits
of a little over 12 square miles. In 1941, we were in another World War, and
just over 23,000 of our young people went off to save the world once again.
100 BOTTLES
ON THE WALL
The truth is I have written
very little about the role the manufacturing of the simple bottle played in Peoria ’s history especially about the time Peoria ’s Saloons closed
and were reborn in the guise of a Confectionary. Here is another secret. Confectioneries and
Soft Drink Parlors were one in the same.
If you look them up in our old City Directories you will find that to be
absolutely true. The buildings were the
same, only the facades were changed to protect our youth. Anyway that was the word from the ‘City Hall’
back in those days. They sold soft
drinks like Coke, Seven Up, root beer, tea, coffee and much more. You could buy cup cakes and cookies, and take
your kids with you. As I said they were
Confectioneries/Soft Drink Parlors and they woke up downtown Peoria
during a dark and dismal period of time here in Peoria , Illinois .
Later in the evening the ‘Night people and the Flappers’ came out and visited
those Parlors and they were not interested in cookies.
Bottling companies sprung up
in Peoria , and
fruit juices were on every shelf. We had
stills scattered around and by 1921 many of the local breweries and distilleries
were in the fruit juice business and the ‘Certified’ distilleries distilled Peoria Whisky for all
kinds of purposes approved by the Volstead Act.
Also, did you know that physicians could write prescriptions for a pint
of whiskey which could be filled at all the local drug stores with Peoria Booze? A lot of local physicians became wealthy on
that little scheme alone. The bottle makers made bottles in all colors and
shapes and by the beginning of 1922, if you knew where to go and when, getting
all the booze you wanted was no problem.
Oh, we had ‘Dry Agents’ that
enforced the Volstead Act and certainly did some arresting, but the fix was in
and the word ‘Joke’ pretty much summed up those enforcement efforts.
THE BOTTLE
DEMAND
Those bottling plants
supplied jobs for a lot of desperate Peorians and as Prohibition continued our
population grew 28,848 people during that first decade. Companies like
Chero-Cola Bottling, Coca-Cola Bottling Works, Arrow products and Independent
Bottling Works, often worked around the clock.
We had several bottle
dealers including Singer Bottling Works and Dennison-Harry Bottle Dealers. We
had three ‘Cereal Beverage’ companies: Atlas, GIPPS and Star Union
Brewing. Does that surprise you? I mean
after all it was Prohibition…I think.
They made something called Near-Beer, but remember everything made in
this line was meant to eventually hold alcohol. If you look at the Peoria City
Directories during those thirteen years you can read exactly what was going on
here and the theme was simple. Buy and
sell material and booze and don’t get caught; it was all that simple. By 1925 Koru
Brothers, Singer Bottling, Watkins Beverage and Whistle Bottling Works joined the
‘March of Glass.’ Prohibition hit Peoria , Illinois harder than any other city in America , but Peoria not only survived it all…Peorians
thrived. norman.kelly@sbcglobal.net
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