Prohibition in Washington, D.C.:: How Dry We Weren't

Prohibition in Washington, D.C.:: How Dry We Weren't

In 1929, it was estimated that every week bootleggers brought twenty-two thousand gallons of whiskey, moonshine and other spirits into Washington, D.C.'s three thousand speakeasies. H.L. Mencken called it the thirteen awful years, "? though it was sixteen for the District. Nevertheless, the bathtub gin, swilling capital dwellers made the most of Prohibition. Author Garrett Peck crafts a rollicking history brimming with stories of vice, topped off with vintage cocktail recipes and garnished with a walking tour of former speakeasies. Join Peck as he explores an underground city ruled not by organized crime but by amateur bootleggers, where publicly teetotaling congressmen could get a stiff drink behind House office doors and the African American community of U Street was humming with a new sound called jazz." "...pops the cork off this conflicted era in the nation's capital, complete with vintage cocktail recipes, a walking tour of Prohibition-related sites, [and] plenty of entertaining history." --Hill Rag, May 2011 "In short, it's a fascinating account of our past." --Washington Life, May 17, 2011 "The reader will come away amused, astonished, and greatly relieved that the days of Prohibition have long passed." --AlcoholReviews.com, May 18, 2011 "District residents were incredibly good at finding a way around the ban on booze." - DCist, October 31, 2011 "Peck churned out one quirky anecdote after another, giving the audience a catalog of fun facts to pull out at happy hours." - National Journal Daily, May 8, 2012 Garrett Peck is a literary journalist and craft beer, drinking, wine-collecting, gin-loving, bourbon-sipping, Simpsons-quoting, early morning, rising history dork. He is the author of The Prohibition Hangover: Alcohol in America from Demon Rum to Cult Cabernet and leads the Temperance Tour of Prohibition-related sites in Washington, D.C. Prohibition in Washington, D.C.: How Dry We Weren't is his second book. A native Californian and Virginia Military Institute graduate, he lives in lovely Arlington, Virginia. His website can be found at www.garrettpeck.com. Prohibition in Washington, D.C. How Dry We Weren't By Garrett Peck The History Press Copyright © 2011 Garrett Peck All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-60949-236-6 Contents Foreword, by Derek Brown, Preface, Temperance!, Prohibition Comes Early, Woodrow Wilson's Wine, The Bottom of the Barrel, The Jim Crow Annex, Sixteen Awful Years, Cocktail Interlude, Democracy on Trial, The Man in the Green Hat, The Hummingbird Flew to Mars, Appendix: The Temperance Tour, Bibliography, Index, About the Author, CHAPTER 1 TEMPERANCE! Quite possibly the ugliest statue in all of Washington, D.C., is the Temperance Fountain, erected in 1882 by California dentist Henry Cogswell. Two intertwined dolphins once spewed water from their mouths. A large crane rests on top. At the base, covered by metal grates, is a well that the city filled with ice. There once was a metal cup that allowed passersby to get a drink of water. Eventually the city tired of filling the fountain, and the water was turned off. At one point, a wire hanger — the kind you get at the dry cleaners — hung from the bird. People have long forgotten the meaning of the statue. They wanted to forget temperance, as temperance gave us prohibition. And prohibition didn't turn out so well. Cogswell made his fortune in the California gold rush and lived in San Francisco. He funded dozens of these temperance statues nationwide, but only a handful survive. There is nearly an identical fountain in New York's Tompkins Square Park in the Lower East Side, which was once a German neighborhood known as Kleindeutschland (Little Germany). You wonder how successful such heavy-handed moralizing was to a community that made beer into America's favorite alcoholic beverage. Washington's Temperance Fountain was initially located at the corner of Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, but it traded places with the monument to the Grand Army of the Republic when the city created Indiana Plaza. Ironically, for years the statue stood in front of the Apex Liquor Store. The location of the fountain is quite significant: it is halfway between the White House and the U.S. Capitol along Pennsylvania Avenue. It is located directly across from the National Archives, which was established in 1931 on the site that housed Center Market. And adjacent to the market was Hooker's Division, Washington's red-light district. This was a very poor neighborhood of shanties and tenements, a den of brothels, gambling parlors and saloons. The division ran from Tenth Street to Fifteenth Street, Northwest — roughly where the Ronald Reagan Building and Department of Commerce are now. Washington Post columnist and historian George Rothwell Brown called Hooker's Division "the city's most evil eyesore." Cogswell's message was clear to all who passed by: drink water, not whiskey. Four words are inscribed