The Broomcorn Express, Quarterly Publication of the Broomfield Historical Society
Vol. 4, No. 3, July–September 2024
The question, “What are you doing New Year’s Eve?” took on a whole different meaning in 1915. People were stocking up on booze. In Colorado, January 1, 1916 was the day when booze was officially banned. The decades-old tension between the “saloon supporters” and the “temperance team” finally played out in legislation banning the sale of alcohol. Measure 2, a statewide prohibition referendum, passed on November 3, 1915 with 52% of the vote.1
Colorado was by no means the first state to attempt to regulate the sale of alcohol. Tennessee tried in 18372 and Maine in 1846 (it didn’t last). By the time that the Volstead Act (aka the 18th Amendment) was passed nationally, 33 states had already passed their own version of prohibition.3 The Act passed with all but two states (Connecticut and Rhode Island) ultimately agreeing.4 Colorado was 30th to sign on.5 While Kansas and Nebraska were “dry” states, our neighbor to the north, Wyoming, was not. What happened next was predictable.
On June 23, 1916, Lafayette officials arrested two men heading south from Cheyenne with 239 pints of whiskey, a one-gallon jug of whiskey, and two dozen pints of beer.6 They were not the first—and they definitely would not be the last.
Things did not improve for the forces of law and order in Broomfield. It appears that bootlegging may have been one of the first “equal opportunity enterprises,” as a Mrs. Smith of Louisville, along with four men and two of her three children, made a trip to Cheyenne. She packed a trunk there, labeled it “necessities,” and had it shipped to a Denver hotel. Smart lady! She sent her accomplices to the hotel to get the trunk, where they were promptly arrested. Unfortunately, they talked, so she was arrested too.
While Mrs. Smith attempted bootlegging by subterfuge, not all Front Range bootleggers were so subtle. In May 1919, two unsuspecting deputies arrested two men, Louis Leveau and Walter James, in Niwot for possession of 50 pints of whiskey. “Walter” was really “Red” Conley who had a significant bootlegging operation in Denver and Adams County. Earlier that year, in court, Red repented of his bootlegging sins and told a sad story of all the fine cars and fortunes he’d lost. His tale of repentance was well received, and the court released him. Two weeks later, Boulder deputies arrested him as he was trying to “run the blockade.”7
Broomfield has a long history of being located along major transportation routes, and clearly, this was attractive to the bootlegging community. In June 1919, authorities were holding a car found abandoned in Broomfield months earlier when the driver escaped police in a chase.8 It appears he had good reason to run since he was also on the run from another bootlegging gang, the Lewis Gang. And he’d also escaped from jail in Boulder and was in considerable trouble with Sheriff Buster for that.9
Other folks took a different approach to this prolonged “dry spell.” In the spring of 1923, a Broomfield family enterprise was interrupted when Prohibition agents raided their still. Father and son both pled guilty on May 26 and were held on $1,000 bond.10
“Small potatoes” (not a vodka reference since corn was the ingredient of choice) describes what had just happened a little further up the road in what is now Broomfield! For years, authorities had wondered where all that booze was coming from in the towns of Louisville, Lafayette, Superior, and Boulder— and, yes, what would become the City and County of Broomfield. Just a mile northwest of the Monarch Mine #2 (west of Highway 36 near the Flatirons Crossing Exit), authorities searched the house of a “suspected” bootlegger. There was nothing in the house or barns which he showed them. He even invited them in for dinner. However, when authorities asked to search the outhouse, they were met by, “you can’t search that without a warrant,” and the hidden entry to the bootlegger’s operation and storehouse was found. The cave, 25’ underground, was large enough to hold a wealth of gallon barrels full of mash, 200 pounds of sugar, and a 50-gallon copper still.
While deputies didn’t want to blast the hen house and pig penimmediately above the cave, they did “borrow” a stick of dynamite from the nearby Monarch coal mine and blew up the entry (well, the entry that they found); it appears that there may have been a back door!11
However well-intentioned the ideals of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union were, prohibition was difficult, at best, to enforce,and it had an economic impact of closing businesses that served alcohol. And, thanks to questionable law enforcement practices, many “soft drink” parlors (like one that still stands on Public Road in Lafayette) sold alcohol. And (surprise!) cases of confiscated liquor kept disappearing from police evidence rooms. There is some evidence that prohibition spurred the growth of organized crime families—both in Colorado and nationally.12
By the late 1920s, Colorado had had enough, and in 1926, it became the first state to hold a referendum calling for the repeal of the 18th Amendment. Colorado was quickly joined by Arizona, New Mexico, and California as well as most of New England. By 1928, more than 12,000 liquor-violation cases were stuck in the Denver courts.13 Something clearly had to give.
By December 1933, 36 states had voted to ratify the 21st Amendment, repealing prohibition. On the first day that alcohol could be sold (April 7, 1933), the Rocky Mountain News estimated that breweries made $200,000 on opening day. That’s about $4,000,000 in today’s dollars. Breweries that we know today—the Tivoli and Coors—returned as if they’d never left.
This could not have been an easy transition for east Boulder County, which has a strong (and mixed) history on this topic. Lafayette, under the influence of Mary Miller—a historical figure who was deeply involved in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union—had a long history of supporting prohibition. And Louisville had an equally strong history of defying it. But Broomfield has inherited much from these jurisdictions, as well as its neighbors to the south, which generally sided with Denver and opposed prohibition. Thank goodness there was at least some room for differing opinions.
Perhaps one of the more interesting changes to come from prohibition was the shift from producing beer in kegs (destined for saloons) to producing beer in cans or bottles. Coors had clearly positioned themselves to grab that part of the market. Post prohibition, the “saloon industry” faded as consumption in cans and bottles increased. Until the rise of today’s brewing industry, alcohol sales, particularly beer, focused on portability of their product. Today’s Colorado brewing industry traces its roots to both the “saloon era” and the changed technology which prohibition brought. So, that being said, “Anyone up for a beer?”
Interested in learning more about the impact of prohibition in Colorado? Check out the work of Sam Bock, at History Colorado, https://erstwhileblog.com/2019/02/27/colorado-prohibition-movement/, and History Colorado’s article at https://www.historycolorado.org/story/2022/08/12/final-round.
This article was originally published by the Broomfield Genealogy Society in their February 2024 quarterly newsletter.
Endnotes
1. “Prohibition,” Colorado Encyclopedia, https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/prohibition.
2. Missy Sullivan, “Tennessee Passes Nation’s First Prohibition Law,” HISTORY, January 26, 2024, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tennessee-passes-nations-first-prohibition-law.
3. Amanda Onion, “Prohibition: Years, Amendment and Definition,” HISTORY, April 24, 2023, https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/prohibition.
4. “The Nation Dries out,” DPLA, https://dp.la/exhibitions/spirits/the-nation-dries-out/18th-amendment.
5. Wikipedia contributors, “Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Wikipedia, April 17, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution.
6. “Five Bootleggers Arrested,” the Lafayette Leader, Vol. XII, No. 21, June 23, 1916, Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection.
7. “Famous Bootleg Artist in Boulder Prison, Incognito,” Boulder Daily Camera, Vol. 29, No. 61, May 24, 1919, Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection.
8. “Lewis Bootleg Gang had Rich Partners and Arrests of Some of Them are Made,” Boulder Daily Camera, Vol. 29, No. 89, June 26, 1919, Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection.
9. “Walter Woeber Escapes From Lewis Gang; Pleads Guilty to Bootlegging Fined by Ingram,” Boulder Daily Camera, Vol. 29, July 25, 1919, Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection.
10. “Agents Take Father, Son and Still in Raid,” the Rocky Mountain News (Daily), Volume 64, Number 146, May 26, 1923, Colorado Historic Newspaper Collection.
11. Ibid.
12. “Prohibition,” Colorado Encyclopedia, and Wikipedia, “Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
13. Ibid.