1918 Willys Knight Overland Model 90, Tacoma, Wash.
The automobile played a prominent role in the history of bootlegging, especially in northwest Washington. This form of smuggling was a result of Prohibition, which cut off liquor supplies but not the demand. After Washington adopted “bone dry” laws in 1916, a steady flow of liquor started coming in from Canada. As we will see in early news accounts, most bootleggers crossed the border in a car.
1922 Willys Knight
Lynden Officer Gets Car And Booze (1922)
“A Willys automobile and twenty-seven cases of whiskey were captured by Customs Inspector Paul O. Dolstad on the Jackman road Tuesday evening, after a half-dozen shots had been fired. The driver of the car escaped. When ordered to halt by Dolstad, the driver speeded up, with Dolstad giving chase and firing at tires and gas-tank. A flat tire swerved the booze-car into the ditch, and the driver hurried away. The car was owned in Anacortes.”
1915 Maxwell 25
Sheriff Wallace Arrests Three for Bootlegging (1917)
“George Randolph, Stanley Worthington and Norman Sweim were arrested at Ferndale Saturday night by Sheriff Wallace and three deputies. The men were alleged to have taken a case of whisky to Ferndale in a machine and to disposing of it, or attempting to do so, to persons at the different dance halls about the town. Only two or three bottles remained in the case when the officers secured possession of it. A Maxwell car driven by the men was also confiscated by Sheriff Wallace and his men.”
Built By Men Who Know
Booze Runners Fined (1917)
“Two contrite and much discouraged young men—William Burt and L.J. Barron, of Seattle—were arraigned this forenoon before Judge W.H. Pemberton on a charge of illegal possession of intoxicants. They were the drivers of the Chandler car which collided with a stump Saturday and was much smashed up in consequence when they tried to drive around another car placed across the road to block them in their efforts to escape from a pursuing deputy sheriff. The deputy, whose name is being withheld, met the two men driving a Chandler while he was driving to Wickersham in a light car. He thought they looked suspicious and turned around to follow them. They ‘stepped on’ the accelerator and the deputy saw that he was being distanced and telephoned ahead and had a friend place a car across the road apparently for repairs, which the young men tried to pass and thereby hit a stump with such force as to almost completely wreck their car. Neither was seriously injured and they abandoned the wreck and continued their flight on foot.”
1917 Chandler Touring Type 17
“Meanwhile the deputy came along and in trying to pass the wrecked car was stalled. He thereupon took after the young men, also on foot, but they outran him and he came back and succeeded in getting his car on the road and took up the trail. Finally he discovered the two men had been given a lift by a truck and pursued the truck, caught up with it and conveyed the young men, who abandoned their flight, back to the county jail. The sheriff went out and gathered up the booze, of which about six cases were intact as to glassware, and had a local garage bring the wreck into the city.”
The twists and turns in this car chase were worthy of the Keystone Kops or Buster Keaton. The Seattle booze-runners were no match for the plucky, unnamed deputy. This run-in with the law foreshadowed the preferred method for booze smuggling, as cars were becoming more common on area roads.
1922 Cadillac Touring Type 61
Booze Auto is Seized at Lynden (1922)
“A big Cadillac touring car, with hidden tanks containing 80 gallons of liquor, was seized on last Thursday morning by Paul O. Dolstad, deputy collector of customs at Lynden, while en route from Canada to Seattle. A valuation of $2,500 was represented in the capture. M.D. Cogswell, driver of the car, was arrested, as was T.J. Sawyer, a member of the Seattle police force, who was riding with him. Sawyer was released later and Cogswell was held under a $1,000 bond. The Cadillac had a copper tank hidden behind the upholstery of the rear seat, and running up behind the cushions. The tanks were full when Dolstad made the arrest. Dolstad turned the car over to the customs officials at Blaine.”
Enforcing Prohibition was a challenge, first for Sheriff Will Wallace and later for Sheriff Al Callahan. Under their watch, customs inspectors like Dolstad scanned the border crossings for smugglers. City police staked out busy hotel rooms. Deputies stopped cars on lonely back roads.
Prohibition proved to be a “failed social experiment” and was repealed in 1933. But that didn’t stop bootleggers from driving fast cars. Just ask Buck Baker or Junior Johnson, early Southern stock car drivers who got their starts haulin’ moonshine.
Thanks for the article. Although Washington’s 428-mile northern border is all-Canada, it’s mostly mountains and snow capped peaks. The same, of course, on the Canadian side. There really aren’t that many access roads between the two, so smuggling must have dependent upon stealth and/or speed. Guess we’ll never know how many actually got through!
Today I learned that Ontario also had Prohibition from 1916 to 1927. The sale of alcohol was forbidden, but not its manufacture or export. Since the border of Ontario and the US is mostly water, there was a lot of midnight boat traffic.
There was a lot of semi-legal boat traffic as well. An ‘excursion boat’ called the Bob-Lo Boat operated between Detroit and Windsor. It would pick up passengers in Detroit and cruise across the mid-river boundary, then open the bottles and start the band for a night of dancing and drinking. My mother grew up in Detroit and remembered the Bob-Lo fondly.
According to my late Father, AL Capone made frequent stops at a gas station were he worked in NW Indiana. Taking a shine to the young guy, Capone offered to enlist him in his Organization. Fortunately, it was NOT one that would require acceptance. I’m not sure what car (or Cars) chauffeured Capone, But this True Story is a DUESSY. 😅 🤣
Interesting. My Mothers family was in Abbotsford BC, just a couple of miles from the crossing at Sumas Washington. There was a legend in the family about her Uncle being involved in this, which paid off the mortgage on the family home. I don’t know how true it was, when asked my Grandmother just smiled and said “oh, he was a character all right.”
When my cousin was arrested trying to cross with a load of BC bud many years later the story came up again, but he ended up with a prison sentence and a forfeited truck instead of a paid off mortgage…..
I liked the story in regards to the Chandler and the plucky unarmed deputy. The only part that has me wondering was when he phoned ahead. Phoned? Phones weren’t all that common in the rural areas of the country. If he had time to phone then that Chandler must have been one slow light weight six. Who knew.
I wonder if the Chandler was a relation to Harry Chandler, a behind the scenes power in early 20th Century Los Angeles?
Nope, it was founded by Frederick C. Chandler of Cleveland, who’d been general manager of Lozier Motor Company until 1913. Here’s a two-page history: https://www.historic-structures.com/oh/cleveland/cleveland_chandler_motors.php
My grandfather was a black teenager in the Boston area during the 20s. He was a talented mechanic, having built a Model T from junkyard parts that he used to drive around when he was 15. He eventually got a job working for an Irish-American “organization” run by a, uh, well known family. As he would put it, mornings he would repair all of their trucks and cars, afternoons he would drive a truck from Boston to a secluded cove in Maine to pick up a bunch of crates and bring them to Boston, evenings he spent partying with his girlfriend (my grandmother).
I love the descriptions of activities like this in newspapers back then. They knew how to write. I wonder what happened to the policeman who was let go after the Cadillac he was riding in was impounded and its owner arrested?
Ah, the illegal liquor trade, wife’s Grandad did 2 stints in Petersburg for the manufacture and distribution of untaxed alcohol, he was from southwest Va the moonshine capitol of the world.
Add in the mountains of North Carolina. Both my grandfathers were in the production bidness as well as several other cousins and uncles who were involved in distribution.
Great story: one of my grandfather’s would argue with the TV weathermen quite often. 95% of the time he was correct.
I asked him one day why he was more accurate than the guys on TV who had historical data and computer models. He told me that the birds and bugs would tell you everything you needed to know about the weather.
I said to him: “wow….that’s a lot of time watching for the weather”
His response: “Gotta do somethin’ while that corn is cookin’ down.”
IIRC the Willys Knight automobile had a “sleeve valve” typ of engine that wasn’t a very good design .
In the early 1960’s I watched a hokey bootleggers movie on the T.V……
-Nate
Really like that “colorful ad”, for the “Chandler, light weight 6”!
Just to be clear, prohibition as defined by the 18th amendment lasted from 1920 until 1933. Some of these stories were from before that time and the laws pertaining would have been local.
I have attached a picture of Al Capone’s 1928 armored Cadillac. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt needed to be rushed from wherever he was to The White House. For safety reasons, the Al Capone Cadillac, which had been stored all these years, was found and put into service for fDR.
A popular story, but not true. This link is a wonderful read.
https://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/id196.htm
And another thing, one could obtain a prescription for a pint of whiskey from one’s doctor for medicinal reasons. Mind you, many an older person had a touch of something for which this was so necessary. After the end of Prohibition, my grandfather continued to make his Armenian Brandy, properly called OGHEE and commonly called ARAK. We still have the still and the crocks.
Maxwell, of course, later became the company that asked Walter Chrysler to run it, and which gave birth to the Chrysler Corporation.
And the famous car of Jack Benny, “voiced” on the radio by Mel Blanc of Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck fame.
I had a great aunt that used to run shine in Kansas and Missouri. I sure wish I could have had more stories from her!.