The story below is from our January/February 2019 issue. For the full issue Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
The last night before Virginia Prohibition took effect was Halloween, and it made for the wildest party in Roanoke’s history.
Courtesy of the Historical Society of Western Virginia
The Capitol Saloon on Salem Avenue in 1913.
At 10:00pm on Tuesday, October 31, 1916, Roanoke officially went dry.
Though national Prohibition was three years away, Virginians had voted to become a dry state, overriding the slew of local options that had allowed places such as Roanoke to be wet. In fact, Roanoke was wetter than most. Many surrounding jurisdictions were already dry, leading to a proliferation of saloons for Roanoke and a steady stream of outsiders to patronize them.
The wets and the drys had been at each other in Roanoke for years. The drys mostly included Protestant clergy and women. Roanoke had active chapters of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Anti-Saloon League and Prohibition Party all dating to the 1890s. The wets included businessmen and the working class.
As for saloons, there were plenty. The 1915 City Directory listed 28 along Salem Avenue and Second Street, with names like Dutch Kitchen, Klondyke, Monticello, the Palm Saloon, the Panama, Stag, Union, Diamond & Moses and Concordia. There was constant tension between the two sides ranging from adopting local prohibition ordinances to blue laws. All of that came to end when, in September 1916, citizens of the Commonwealth voted overwhelmingly to make Virginia the nineteenth dry state in the Union.
The ordinance that had been adopted called for the sale of all beer, wine and liquor to end at 10:00 p.m. on the last day of October. To prepare, all police officers in the city were called in and put on patrol, parents were encouraged to keep their children home after dark, ending Halloween early, and the Norfolk & Western gave all employees their paychecks two days early so that liquor could be bought before the deadline. The law stated that while liquor could not be sold during state prohibition, it did not criminalize its private consumption. Thus, saloons prepared for the run on their supplies as persons bought what they could to take home for storage in basements, attics, garages and, for some, burial in their backyard.
The Roanoke Times described the last night before what became known as The Drought with a eulogy. “Old John Barleycorn of Roanoke laid down his life last night. A dying king may have no friends, but John Barleycorn was accompanied to the grave by a stream of mourners who would have reached from the uttermost point of the West End yards to Bonsack.”
The pro-prohibition Roanoke Evening-World chose to celebrate the night by coupling it with their election opinion favoring Democrat Woodrow Wilson over Republican Charles Evan Hughes:
“Yesterday we parted with Mr. Booze
This time next week goes Mr. Hughes.
No more booze,
No more Hughes,
Tata blues.
Things will happen as we choose;
Your timely going we excuse;
Goodbye Booze,
Goodbye Hughes,
Tata blues!”
Saloonkeepers were hardly writing poems. The last night in Roanoke before The Drought was chaotic as a rush ensued to get the last available supplies. One man drove in forty miles from his farm and loaded his vehicle with beer and whiskey. As he pulled away, a tire broke. He and others could only watch as beer and whiskey flooded his car and poured into the street. Amid his eruption of foul language, he managed to salvage a half-pint of Turkey gin.
A customer exited a saloon on Salem Avenue with two loaded suitcases and went into another establishment for one last drink with a friend. When it came to depart, the suitcases had been emptied by others while he drank.
Another man bragged to his friends that he had purchased a barrel of whiskey the week before and buried it at his farm. When his friends asked if the barrel was worm-proof, he rushed off to disinter it.
The N&W depot was overwhelmed with passengers from dry counties coming to Roanoke. Empty suitcases were brought back full, some dragging them through the street as they arrived to catch a departing train.
The city police force made so many arrests for public drunkenness that the jail became full by mid-afternoon.
The breweries and wholesalers shipped that morning whatever supply they had to other states.
Retailers began charging three and four times their average price, as customers lied to one another about where to find the best deal in the hopes of thinning a line. The occasion was likened to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, as even the tee-totaling curious ventured over to Salem Avenue to witness a historic moment.
The scene was made even more surreal as partiers heading out for Halloween festivities at hotels and private homes stopped and made their way along Salem Avenue costumed as witches and clowns.
Saloons and wholesale dealers served thousands. Customers could not get what they ordered but gladly drank whatever was served. Packing boxes, kegs, barrels and bottles lined the floors of local watering holes and Salem Avenue was described as “a scene of devastation.”
Some saloons tried to make the best of it, hanging signs in their windows poking fun at prohibition.
“This is the last week. Next week will be weaker.”
“Don’t tell me that you want it for the old lady – she’s got hers. How about yours?”
“If you don’t believe we sell good liquor cheap watch the price of cheap whiskey after Tuesday.”
“You can have all we have left after Tuesday night.”
“Best wishes for a happy dry year!”
One saloon ran dry that afternoon and hung a sign that read, “Good night.”
Alcohol and beer sales in Roanoke on the last day of legal liquor were estimated to have topped $100,000. And at precisely 10:00 p.m., 36 retail and shipping dealers shut their doors. The white-coated bar tenders at the hotels and clubs swabbed their bars as porters dimmed the lights. The Drought had begun.
The next morning, Salem Avenue and a few other formerly wet sections of the city were abandoned. Saloonkeepers arrived late afternoon with knives and soap to scrape clean their windows of ads for spirits, a requirement of the state prohibition act. Trucks lined Salem Avenue as they were loaded with tables, chairs and fixtures, while a few passersby looked into the windows and stalls of now-empty beer halls. Salem Avenue was for the first time in Roanoke’s history eerily quiet.
While many were sleeping off the effects of the Halloween night revelry, others were looking forward to a temperance celebration. The city’s drys, led by Mayor Charles Broun, had planned a rally for Sunday afternoon at the Jefferson Theater. Every temperance organization in the city, including the ministers’ conference, was in support of the program that included an address from the mayor and a tableau presented by twenty young ladies and fifty children. The drama was entitled, “The Children’s Tribute to the Nineteen Prohibition States.” Broun had prepared his remarks around the theme “The Relation of the City of Roanoke to the New Law” and the Chief of Police Charles Hamilton was a listed speaker as well. Admission was free and the Jefferson Theater was standing room only.
Colonel J.D. Johnston acted as emcee and began the program by having the audience stand and sing “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow” and Broun stirred the crowd by pledging to strictly enforce the law of prohibition in the city. The tableau was presented with children parading down the theater aisles and on to the stage with black cloaks that they threw off in a dramatic fashion symbolizing the casting off of liquor in Virginia. The audience rose to their feet and thundered applause.
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