Old Settlers Gazette 2005 - Page 34 An Interview with Robert Lee Bates Pioneer Spotlight by Jan Primas He [Judge] looked at it and he [deFor- Prosecuting Attorney stood there and est] says, “If you don’t believe that looked like a crazy man. He was the OSG: [Laughs] That’s why he was so check’s good, I got the money right Prosecuting Attorney and didn’t good to get you out of jail. here in my pocket. He [Judge] said, know as much about the law as my “Oh, your check’s alright.” But the Dad did. My Dad was a Justice of the RLB: Yeah, and the Houston lawyer next morning, as soon as the bank Peace. was one of our customers and some was open, that Justice of the Peace So we didn’t go and later on, I don’t of those tie buyers that went through was there to see if he did have money. know how it happened, but the Sher- the country and bought ties for the When he went, he asked the cashier if iff come down after me and I didn’t railroad, they were customers. We’ve that check was good. He [cashier] go. I got away. And my Dad, I don’t had young punks come there and said, “That check’s good for twenty know.I left the country in April of want to buy whiskey. We told them thousand dollars right now.” And 1925. I was 18 years old and I left the we didn’t have any. We wouldn’t sell back in them days, twenty thousand country and when the case came up it to ‘em. I had one guy to come there dollars was a lot of money. the next time, the Judge of the Court one day and he went to grade school Anyway, we had Bill Hyatt out of threw it out. There was no evidence. there at Harmon Valley and he had a Houston, the best lawyer in Houston, But he had nothing to take us in on in little flat bottle. He said “Would you for our lawyer and he told my dad the first place. He found no liquor, he sell me a dime’s worth of whiskey?” I that it’s no use for you guys to get on found no still, or anything else. Only said, “I ain’t got none.” We turned Robert Lee Bates (1907-2004) the witness stand. He says that guy’s that jar of vinegar that my mother them all down. That was in the Prohi- going to bind you over to Circuit was making out of apples. They just bition days. On the day before his 97th birthday, the Court. They didn’t have any evidence. didn’t know what they was doin’, I Old Settlers Gazette interviewed Robert I don’t know what they took us for. guess. OSG: How did you sell it? In little Lee Bates at his home in Licking, Mis- They didn’t find no whiskey, no still, pint jars? souri. Mr. Bates grew up in the small mill or anything. All they found was a gal- OSG: So, where did you have your community of Hazleton on the Big Piney lon jug in the house, a clear glass jug still hidden where they couldn’t find RLB: Oh, we sold it in quart food River. We talked about river men and his that I had picked up beside the high- it? jars,half a gallon fruit jars, and if we teenage years as a bootlegger with his way and it had an odor of whiskey in could find bottles, we had bottles. We father. Following is an excerpt about it but nothing in it. I just picked it up RLB: Well, it wasn’t on our place. used to call ‘em fruit jar drinkers back those days in northern Texas County. and brought it to the house and he They searched our whole farm, the in them days. found it in the house. And my mother house, downstairs, upstairs, and all. I know one time there was two fellas Old Settler’s Gazette: Were there ever had, I think it was, a six gallon or We was about three miles from our come up to our place and they was any stills in the backwoods around quarts stone jar there that she made house at a spring that some people camped down at Hazleton and they here that you know of? apple vinegar out of. Harry Kelly was lived at in that part but they didn’t was from Mexico, Missouri. These the Sheriff. He got a bucket and he live there anymore. It was a good two fellas drove up in a car that time. Robert Lee Bates: Well, I did that poured it all out and my dad told him spring. It was all walled up with They said they was told by a fella at back in the Prohibition days.We had a “You might have to pay for that later rocks. That’s what we used for the Hazleton who run the store that they copper still and copper line to run it on.” He just poured it all out and he mash and you had to use it to keep could find some good liquor up here. through and had a big spring where took us in. your copper tubing cool ‘cause when Talked to my Dad and he said, “Who- we got the water and we soured the When our case come due that next you boiled your whiskey, it went into ever they was, told you wrong.” We mash in four 50 gallon barrels and spring in April, why we was at Hous- that tubing, it turned into liquid, and didn’t know the people. They might they was put inside of a big wooden ton and my dad said he was going to came out the end of it. be prohibition men so we turned box and a lantern put in there to keep put the case off until next term. We them down. it warm so it would work.Then one was under criminal charge at that OSG: Who did you sell your whiskey One of ‘em had a horseshoe pitching time the Sheriff come down, him and court and it would be the next August to? Who bought it? place in the lane. He said, “Do you the Prosecuting Attorney from Hous- in that same year. So he got the case pitch horse shoes?” I said, “Yes.” He ton came down to search our place, put off ‘til August but when we got RLB: Well, we sold it to, not to kids or said, “Well, let’s play a game.” So we and there wasn’t no still on our place ready to leave, my dad knew we had young people, but mostly old peo- played a game and my Dad was talk- a-tall and no liquor and no mash but to fill out a new bond, that the old ple.Virgil deForest was one of our ing to the other fella. When we got he took us here to Licking, me and bond only held from the Justice of the customers. through, they left. my dad. I was only 16 or 17 years old Peace at Licking to Houston. So he at that time. So they had the trial here talked to our lawyer there and he says before a Justice of the Peace and this what are they going to do about the Justice bound us over to Circuit Court bond and then our lawyer says if the in Houston and we were under a Prosecuting Attornery hasn’t got bond, 300 or 3000 dollars, I don’t sense enough to put you under a new remember which. one, go on home. And that’s what we A fellow by the name of Virgil done. His name was Dale Mobley and deForest had a business here in Lick- the Sheriff was Harry Kelly. ing, he’s not living any more, was in So we come on home and the next there and my dad went out and got August, when he called our cases, three bondsmen that lived here in why we wasn’t there. So Dale Mobley Licking and brought ‘em back. My says, “I’ll just have their bondsmen dad was a Mason and he knew a lot just hunt ‘em up.” And the Judge of people and he come back and this over the Court says, Let me see your Justice of the Peace was writing out bond.” He looked at it and he says the bond and Virgil deForest pulled “Why, you don’t have them under a out his pocketbook and wrote out a bond.” He said, “That bond was out check and he says, “Don’t fool with when they changed their case to the Confiscated still in Texas County, 1927. Courtesy of the Texas County Historical that, here’s a check for their bond.” August term of court.” He said the Society. Old Settlers Gazette - Page 35 The Profit is Alluring So that day I told my Dad, I said, “ stuff is good.” I said, “Yes, it is. It’s Temptation Is Too Great for Maker of Moonshine Whisky to Turn Their Backs I’ll go saddle my horse and go down double run.” It wasn’t single run. So there and see if they were down at they said, “We’d like to have a couple Were it not for the large tax imposed by the government upon the manufacture Hazleton.