Make a toast to Prohibition: When booze stopped flowing, except in parts of Lexington
Editor’s Note: As Lexington celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, the Herald-Leader and kentucky.com each day throughout 2025 will share interesting facts about our hometown. Compiled by Liz Carey, all are notable moments in the city’s history - some funny, some sad, others heartbreaking or celebratory, and some just downright strange.
Jan. 17, 1920: Put down your drinks, Kentucky: Prohibition begins.
According to the Lexington Leader, it was a day of mixed blessing with the “drys” celebrating while the “wets” cried in their beer. The federal legislation saw the closure of local distilleries like Old Tarr and John Pepper.
At the time, the temperance movement was led by Carrie Nation, who was born in 1846 in Garrard County, Kentucky. The cause was sweeping the country. Started in 1890, the movement aimed at banning the sale of liquor (deemed “the destroyer of men’s souls and the scourge of the family unit”) took hold in Kentucky. By 1914, only about 14 of the state’s 120 counties remained wet.
Fayette County remained wet, and became a virtual oasis surrounded by dry counties.
Prior to 1918, the city had more than 144 bars - one for every 300 citizens at the time. The temperance movement helped to shutter about one-third of them, and by 1919, there were fewer than 100 left open.
On Prohibition Day, as the temperance leaguers, the drys, held a party at Broadway Christian Church to celebrate, the wets were figuring out how to get their alcohol. Many of the bars were converted into restaurants with speakeasy backrooms, or into “candy and soft drink stores” that served as a front for liquor sales.
By July 1920, while local law enforcement had been given the authority to arrest people for violations, Lexington’s political boss Billy Klair was “wet,” and the local sheriffs and police didn’t seem too enthusiastic about rounding up drinkers.
Enterprising bootleggers would either distill their own in nearby rural counties, or raid the city’s shuttered distilleries for alcohol left behind. At the Lexington Brewing Co., the city’s largest beer brewer, operations continued for several months, most likely due to the fact one of its major investors was the city’s mayor, Thomas Bradley.
Eventually, federal agent raided the brewery and confiscated some 6,000 bottles of beer. While the brews were stored in the federal courthouse, several hundred disappeared.
To ensure the beer didn’t fall into someone else’s hands, an estimated 5,000 bottles were disposed of into the sewer. Reports indicate the city smelled “yeasty” for several days.
This story was originally published January 20, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
