According to one unverified story, the owner of Herold’s West End Hotel at The Circle (the present location of McDonald’s) was brought before a judge after a load of illegal was found at the hotel during Pro- hibition. According to the family story, the charges were dropped on a technicality. After was repealed in December 1933, the hotel, pictured on a postcard from around 1940, was one of the first in East Aurora to receive a liquor license. (From the archives of the Aurora Town Historian’s Office). Mixed Reactions Greeted Prohibition 100 Years Ago

by Robert Lowell Goller Town and Village Historian

he beginning of Prohibition a century ago this month, at the stroke of midnight on Jan. T 17, 1920, was met with both jubilation and despair in the East Aurora area. Local religious and temperance organizations, which had fought for decades to ban the sale of alcohol, held public cele- brations. A day after Prohibition became the law of the land, the Methodist Church held a “special celebration,” accord- ing to the East Aurora Advertiser. The village’s Presbyterian and Baptist congregations joined forces for a “Service of Thanksgiving for National Prohibition,” according to the newspaper. And the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union held a “prayer and praise service” at a home on Center Street. It is clear, however, that not everyone was celebrating. Just a few years earlier, in 1917, the men of Aurora voted to keep the town “wet,” albeit by a small majority. The 18th Amendment was ratified on Jan. 16, 1919, with terms dictating that the entire nation would go dry a year later. Over the course of that year, several articles appeared in the Advertiser related to Prohibition, including details about the Volstead Act, which Congress enacted in Octo- ber 1919 to, among other things, determine the definition of an “intoxicating” beverage. Misinformation about the law circulated through- out the region, which led authorities in Buffalo to issue multiple public statements in the months leading up to January 2020. For instance, a provision in the law allowed pri- vate liquor stocks in some circumstances, but authorities were quick to note that private stocks could not be transferred from a winter home to a summer home. A small liquor stock could be relocated when the owner changed his or her per- manent address, but authorities required proof that the furniture was moved, too. Local residents began sharing formulas for homemade intoxicants, but the Internal Revenue A postcard image shows The Globe Hotel about a decade office in Buffalo issued a statement in December before Prohibition. The Globe was one of the first East Au- 1919, published in the Advertiser, warning resi- dents that selling recipes for intoxicating liquors rora establishments to obtain a liquor license after Prohibi- was “a serious violation of the law.” tion was repealed in December 1933. (From the archives of the Aurora Town Historian’s Office.) Some area residents also were under the false impression that they could manufacture their own alcohol at home, as long as they didn’t offer it for sale. “The Buffalo Revenue office has answered thousands of inquiries relative to the making of intoxicants in homes,” a statement from the office noted. In each response to an inquiry, the Buffalo office “fully explained that liquor is banned, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the act.” Although supporters of Prohibition pointed to the benefits of the law, including statistics that showed lower crime and poverty rates, the 18th Amendment certainly didn’t eliminate intoxicating beverages entirely. Bars and distilleries had been shuttered, but there were illegal gathering places even in the most conservative of communities. The federal government didn’t have the resources to adequately enforce Prohibition, and state and local law enforcement agencies often lacked the manpower or the desire to crack down on illegal intoxicants. With East Aurora’s proximity to , there is little doubt that illegal liquor made its way to our area. On several oc- casions in the early 1920s, the Advertiser reported on efforts to curb illegal booze heading across the Canadian border. “Government officials in Buffalo took the first step to stop rum running across the Niagara River,” the newspaper report- ed on March 30, 1922. “A high-powered motor boat manned by a crew of customs officials and prohibition enforcement men, each equipped with a rifle, was placed in commission.” Enforcement officials, however, couldn’t seem to stop illegal importations along many parts of the border, especially at Christmastime. In December 1923, the Advertiser reported: “Canadian liquor is said to be pouring in across the north- eastern border of State for the holiday trade in unprecedented quantities.” By the summer of 1925, federal officials admitted that they simply lacked the resources and facilities to “drive back a tidal wave of liquor from Canada,” the Advertiser noted. Even still, several thousand arrests were made across New York State annually in the early 1920s, according to reports. The Advertiser routinely included reports of Prohibition enforcement in other areas of the state. “Storage of liquor seized in Steuben County has created a problem for Sheriff Kellogg of Bath, as the county jail is near- ly filled with the seized liquor,” the newspaper reported in October 1922. A month later, the newspaper reported that “New York City police found that a steel suit of armor in an antique store was the hiding place for liquor sold to patrons of the store.” “When prohibition agents raided an undertaking establishment in New York City, they found freshly distilled liquor and embalming fluid side by side and four large stills in an adjoining room,” the Advertiser reported in June 1923. In June 1924, the newspaper noted that the liquor permits of 10 Buffalo druggists were revoked. “Many infractions of the law have been discovered against druggists,” the Advertiser reported. Any instances of illegal alcohol in East Aurora were not widely reported in the Advertiser, but a few stories have become part of local legend. One unverified story involves George P. Herold, owner of Herold’s West End Hotel at The Circle (the present location of McDonald’s). According a story passed down through his family, Herold was brought before a judge after a load of ille- gal alcohol was found at the hotel. According to the family story, the charges were dropped on a technicality. Another story can be verified in the pages of the Advertiser. Two men from Varysburg were arrested for manufacturing in July 1923. “State Police were in town Saturday and took into custody George Newell and Joseph Hudjonoski, on the charge of mak- ing and possessing moonshine liquor,” the Advertiser reported. “They seized the still and a considerable quantity of whis- key, and took the two men before Justice Henry Lapp who imposed a fine of $50 each and 60 days in jail, the jail sen- tence to be suspended on good behavior. The still was located on the premises of George Newell on French Road and was set up in an old hen house.” The number of arrests for violations to the Prohibition laws plummeted by the late 1920s. State Police made only 585 Prohibition-related arrests across New York in 1928, according to a report in the Advertiser. Frustrated Temperance Union members pointed out, however, that this didn’t mean fewer people were manufacturing and selling illegal booze. It was just a sign of inadequate enforcement, they said. Poison bootleg liquor was also a problem. According to one report, 11 people died of poison liquor in Niagara County in just one year. East Aurora’s temperance and religious leaders remained vigilant into the early 1930s, but it became clear they were los- ing the battle to keep Prohibition alive. When Town of Aurora and Village of East Aurora voters went to the polls in May 1933 on the question of whether or not to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment, the tally was overwhelmingly in favor of repeal. “The vote was 1,117 for repeal and 450 against,” the Advertiser reported.

States across the Union agreed. Prohibition was officially repealed nationwide on Dec, 5, 1933. East Aurorans didn’t have to wait long to buy booze again. Just a few days later, Wilma Balthasar obtained the first liq- uor license in the village, for a liquor store at 727 Main St., at the corner of Main and Olean Street. By the end of the month, Victor Balthasar, owner of The Globe Hotel, and George P. Herold, the West End Hotel owner reportedly caught with a shipment of illegal booze a few years earlier, also were granted liquor licenses. After a 13-year absence, (legal) alcohol had returned to East Aurora and the nation.

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Robert Lowell Goller is the eighth Aurora town and East Aurora village historian since the office was created in 1919. The Historian’s Office is open for research Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1-4 p.m. Visit www.townofaurora.com/departments/historian for more information. The Town Historian’s Office can also be found on Facebook at “Aurora Town Historian” and on Instagram at “auroratownhistorian.”