A cartoon, which appeared on the front page of the Chicago Tribune on April 7, 1933, hints at possible ambivalent feelings of Americans toward the return of legal beer.
On a chilly Friday morning 90 years ago this Friday, Lima celebrated the informal end of 13 years of Prohibition with a sip of 3.2 percent lager beer brewed in Wapakoneta.
“Crowds gathered in cafes, restaurants and clubs to celebrate the return of ‘happy days,’” The Lima News wrote April 7, 1933. “Seven licensed retail sellers and two wholesalers reported a brisk business throughout the forenoon. The reception to beer was happy, but quiet and orderly. … Broad smiles were on the faces of customers as they proceeded to sample the new brew and then expressed content with the new style of handling beer, as provided by the recently enacted state law.”
Although Prohibition would not officially end until Dec. 5, 1933, with the ratification of the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment, the Cullen-Harrison Act passed in March 1933 eased restrictions, allowing for the sale of low-alcohol beer and wine.
“I think this would be a good time for a beer,” President Franklin Roosevelt exclaimed as he signed the bill into law on March 22, 1933, the day after it was approved by Congress. The law went into effect April 7, 1933, a day now commemorated as National Beer Day.
“The start of the beer traffic marked the local departure from the bone-dry prohibition laws which have governed the country for the last 13 years,” The Lima News noted April 7.
Lima and the country had last taken a legal sip of alcohol in January 1920.
“Old John Barleycorn ‘kicked the bucket’ last night,” The Lima News wrote Jan. 17, 1920, the day the Volstead Act, which put the teeth in Prohibition, became law. “His supporters in Lima stayed up until a late hour in grieving as the condition of their century-old friend grew weaker, until he finally took his last breath at 12:01 o’clock, Friday midnight.”
“Old John Barleycorn,” however, had not breathed his last. Gradually, popular sentiment turned against Prohibition, which merely slowed consumption while making millionaires of bootleggers. Finally, as the Great Depression gripped the country, it was realized brewers and distillers provided jobs as well as booze. The Cullen-Harrison Act was the political reaction to the country’s changing mood.
In Ohio, the way was cleared for the sale of 3.2 beer on April 5, 1933, when the process of issuing permits to sell the beer began.
“Lima will have no legal 3.2 percent beer until after daylight Friday, and the supply then probably will be small,” The Lima News wrote April 6. “That summarized the outlook Thursday in regard to the local lager situation as license seekers were making last minute rushes for permits, and it became apparent that only one brewery in the district would be prepared to meet the opening demand – and then not until 7 a.m. The bulk of Lima’s first day supply will come from … the bottled beer stored in the plant of the Koch Beverage Co., at Wapakoneta.”
Under a special permit issued by the federal government, Koch had been brewing beer for several weeks.
“More than 186,000 gallons of legalized beer will flow from (Wapakoneta) Friday,” The Lima News wrote April 2. “Bottling will be placed under way Tuesday, the beer to be taken from 48 vats of 125-barrel capacity where it has been stored.”
Among the Lima applicants applying for retail licenses were the Lima Club, Elks Club, Eagles Club, Congress Café, Jack and Yoshie restaurant, Nanking Restaurant, Keville cigar store and restaurant and the Halloran Hotel.
The Lima News added that “there was a probability that a few brands of beer from more distant points might arrive in Lima sometime Friday” with some of the large brewing companies in the west releasing beer at 12:01 a.m. to be delivered by rail. Draft beer, also, was not initially available.
So, the “flow of legalized 3.2 percent lager” in Lima began with the delivery of approximately 36,000 bottles of “Dutch Special” beer from Koch at around 8 a.m. April 7, 1933.
“Lima was the second city to obtain early Friday a consignment of beer from Koch Beverage Co. of Wapakoneta,” the Lima News reported April 7, adding the first truck of beer left Wapakoneta at 2:30 a.m. bound for Mason, Kentucky (between Cincinnati and Lexington). The beer consigned to Mason left earlier because it had to be transported across state lines and did not arrive at Mason until around 10 a.m. April 7.
“The Lima shipments were not started over the Dixie Highway until 6 a.m.,” The Lima News added.
Whatever the logistics, the Dutch Special beer, which was judged “good enough for me” by local beer drinkers, according to The Lima News, received an enthusiastic welcome. E. J. Reminger, of 205 W. Grand Ave., who didn’t wait for the beer to come to him, recorded the first retail purchase by a Lima resident. Early on April 7, Reminger traveled to Wapakoneta and bought two cases of beer at the brewery, the maximum permitted in a retail sale, The Lima News noted.
“One Lima retail firm reported at noon that it had only 60 cases of beer left out of its first supply of 500 cases. Most of these deliveries were made to private homes,” The Lima News wrote.
“A restaurant and cigar store on South Main Street was one of the busiest places in town during the forenoon,” the newspaper added. “It was the mecca for hundreds of persons who very plainly showed their delight at the return of beer. Shortly after noon the proprietor of this establishment said he had sold more than 1,000 bottles.”
Despite the brisk sales, Koch officials “expressed belief that their 6,000-case supply would be sufficient to carry through until early next week. A force of 40 men is working at the plant, which is operating day and night,” The Lima News wrote, adding that “widely known brands of beer from more distant points were expected to begin arriving late in the day. One Lima wholesale firm had sent trucks to Chicago and expected them to return before nightfall.”
In Lima, as in most Ohio cities, beer deliveries were intentionally delayed until the morning of April 7 in “an attempt to prevent ‘rowdyism’ during the night,” according to the Associated Press. “Thus, full celebration of the advent of 3.2 brew was delayed most everywhere until today with indications that the real welcoming festivities would occur tonight and over the weekend.”
Nationally, the Associated Press wrote April 7 that “the thump of the bung-starters on countless kegs drummed a long-lost beverage back to the American scene” as “lawful 3.2 percent beer gushed in a territory populated by about 70,000,000 Americans,” the 19 states and the District of Columbia that had “lifted a ban more than 13 years old.”
Five minutes after beer became legal at midnight, “a big truck, gay with festoons, rumbled to the service entrance of the White House, bearing two cases – a brewer’s gift to President Roosevelt,” the Associated Press added.
SOURCE
This feature is a cooperative effort between the newspaper and the Allen County Museum and Historical Society.
LEARN MORE
See past Reminisce stories at limaohio.com/tag/reminisce
Reach Greg Hoersten at [email protected].
