Prohibition in Humboldt

These gentlemen wouldn’t have been able to wet their whistles during Prohibition. Not officially, anyway. The Snug Saloon in Eureka, undated.

Although sedate and picturesque today, Humboldt has certainly had a rowdy past. As the biggest port between San Francisco and Seattle, we have always had a vibrant waterfront. Sailors from lumber and merchant ships looked forward to their shore leave here, and trains brought workers from the mills to Eureka’s Second Street where they could fully enjoy their weekends. In 1909, Old Town Eureka boasted 65 saloons and 32 brothels.

However, waves of liquor prohibition fervor periodically swept the nation from the mid-19th century on. Christian temperance groups were active in Humboldt, but a 1912 ballot attempt to go dry failed in every community except Fortuna. During the First World War, temperance efforts associated the evils of drink, particularly beer, with the German enemy.

In 1920, things came to a head with passage of 18th Amendment, establishing prohibition nation-wide. Humboldt County, however, did not prove a model of compliance. The bars that lined Eureka’s Second Street ostensibly became “soft drink emporiums”, and local breweries became soda and candy businesses. But, in fact, many bars were simply now “blind pigs” with copper vats and tubing hidden in their walls. Peep holes and passwords at the front doors scanned the clientele.

Prohibited liquor was provided from many sources. Moonshine stills were concealed in Humboldt’s abundant woods and gullies. Some were even hidden under recently established chicken farms because chicken feed was one source of bootleggers’ mash.

“Rumrunners” also drove up from points south, and liquor was concealed in cargoes coming into Humboldt Bay, particularly from prohibition-free Canada. The Coast Guard even assigned a ship to curtail this trade – with limited success.

Law enforcement efforts were indeed made. A county Dry Squad, sometimes supplemented by federal agents, occasionally made arrests, broke up stills and fined establishments. Nonetheless, the number of arrests for drunkenness kept increasing. The local cities may have lost bar-licensing revenues, but this was made up for with steady income from fines. Some confiscated liquor was resold by corrupt police. In 1929, the newly elected prohibitionist mayor, Emily Jones, fired two police chiefs for failing to take enforcement seriously.

Rio Dell, or Wildwood as it was appropriately named then, was a prohibition-scoffers’ hot-spot. The many Italian farmers and mill-workers in the area were experienced in wine-making and set up a buzzer system so that if the Dry Squad was sited at one end of town all the bootleggers and blind pigs were alerted in time to hide their activities.

By the end of the 1930s, however, the Depression was in full swing. The economic, criminal and psychological impact of prohibition was proving too great. After Franklin Roosevelt’s electoral sweep, the 18th amendment was repealed in 1933, and liquor manufacture and sales could come out of hiding. Humboldt was legally wet again.