Drying out: A prohibition timeline by Bill Ward

Last update: October 27, 2007 - 4:09 PM

OCT. 28, 1919

Congress passes the Volstead Act, establishing the government's right to investigate and punish violators of Prohibition.

JAN. 16, 1920

Prohibition begins under the 18th Amendment, which bans the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors."

1922

St. Paul Police Chief Michael Gebhardt estimates that 75 percent of the city's residents are making wine or moonshine.

1923

U.S. attorneys in Minneapolis log more than 60 percent of their hours on dry-law cases.

1924

Seventeen Minneapolis residents die of alcohol poisoning over a four-week period.

1925

A Collier's magazine survey ranks San Francisco and St. Paul as the two "wettest" cities in the nation.

1927

Frank Cloutier and the Victoria Cafe Orchestra make the first commercial label recordings in the Twin Cities, including a song called "The Moonshiner's Dance."

DEC. 4, 1928

Saloon owner "Dapper Dan" Hogan, a go-between for St. Paul police and gangsters, is killed by a car bomb outside his W. 7th St. home.

JAN. 18, 1930

Bootlegging kingpin Leon Gleckman moves into the Hotel St. Paul and establishes it as his headquarters.

SEPT. 24, 1931

Gleckman is kidnapped. He is released eight days later, and his kidnappers are imprisoned or killed shortly thereafter.

MARCH 29, 1933

The Minneapolis City Council allows sale of 3.2 beer.

JUNE 15, 1933

The Barker-Karpis gang kidnaps brewery president William Hamm Jr., effectively ending the gangsters' truce with St. Paul police.

SEPT. 12, 1933

Fifty-nine Minnesota counties vote to repeal Prohibition.

DEC. 5, 1933

Prohibition is repealed by the 21st Amendment.

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