Doug Loudenback
08-31-2009, 06:20 AM
The on-line version of today's Oklahoman contains a very nice article by Steve on the early days and years following the repeal of Prohibition ... http://newsok.com/advent-of-liquor-sales-posed-danger-in-oklahoma/article/3396712?custom_click=pod_headline_local-financial-news ... unfortunately, my own "paper" Oklahoman did not see fit to include the Business section at all.
History buffs will really enjoy the article ... I had not realized that the violence associated with repeal was related to out-of-state interests, particularly NY interests if I read the article correctly. I do remember the gun tower on Byron's, though, but I don't recall the explosions there or elsewhere.
It's a great read. Here's a snippet:
When Prohibition ended 50 years ago this week in Oklahoma, state leaders hoped for a peaceful transition to a competitive market for liquor retailing, wholesaling and distribution.
But two of the first liquor retailers in Oklahoma City remember Sept. 1, 1959, as a virtual gold rush followed by bombings, shootings, murders and an odd political struggle that pitted Baptist dry forces with local liquor retailers against New York producers.
http://photos.newsok.com/2/showimage/664428/gallery_photo
Armed with machine gun toting security men the tower was!
Do you older guys and gals remember J. Howard Edmondson's exciting Prairie Fire TV campaign ... TV ads showed a literal prairie fire sweeping across Oklahoma east to west! It was pretty exciting for a youngster ... I guess the campaign would have been in fall 1958 ... I was 15 then.
http://www.nndb.com/people/287/000119927/j-howard-edmondson-1.jpg
He hired Joe Cannon as his Commissioner of Public Safety to force a showdown. See http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/P/PR018.html :
In 1958 Democrat J. Howard Edmondson won the governorship, committing himself to strong enforcement of the laws and to a special election on repeal. Although Edmondson faced determined opposition in pushing a repeal referendum through the legislature, he ultimately succeeded, and a vote was set for April 1959. The referendum provided for the package sale of liquor, and it also contained a local option provision.
Edmondson lived up to his promise of vigorous enforcement of the liquor laws. He wanted to give Sooners the choice of voting for legalized liquor or doing without the illegal booze that so many of them continued to imbibe. Commissioner of Public Safety Joe Cannon devised an enforcement method to shut off almost all liquor supplies to the state. Drys hated to admit it, but the enforcement they had long demanded worked against them. The so-called "Cannon raids" affected convention and hotel business in the larger cities, and they annoyed some people unaccustomed to searches of establishments that sold booze. A United Oklahomans group that led the attack against the repeal referendum faced a number of problems they could not overcome.
From Muskogee, in 1971 Edmondson died in Oklahoma City at only 46 years of age from heart failure and is buried in Memorial Park Cemetery here.
History buffs will really enjoy the article ... I had not realized that the violence associated with repeal was related to out-of-state interests, particularly NY interests if I read the article correctly. I do remember the gun tower on Byron's, though, but I don't recall the explosions there or elsewhere.
It's a great read. Here's a snippet:
When Prohibition ended 50 years ago this week in Oklahoma, state leaders hoped for a peaceful transition to a competitive market for liquor retailing, wholesaling and distribution.
But two of the first liquor retailers in Oklahoma City remember Sept. 1, 1959, as a virtual gold rush followed by bombings, shootings, murders and an odd political struggle that pitted Baptist dry forces with local liquor retailers against New York producers.
http://photos.newsok.com/2/showimage/664428/gallery_photo
Armed with machine gun toting security men the tower was!
Do you older guys and gals remember J. Howard Edmondson's exciting Prairie Fire TV campaign ... TV ads showed a literal prairie fire sweeping across Oklahoma east to west! It was pretty exciting for a youngster ... I guess the campaign would have been in fall 1958 ... I was 15 then.
http://www.nndb.com/people/287/000119927/j-howard-edmondson-1.jpg
He hired Joe Cannon as his Commissioner of Public Safety to force a showdown. See http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/P/PR018.html :
In 1958 Democrat J. Howard Edmondson won the governorship, committing himself to strong enforcement of the laws and to a special election on repeal. Although Edmondson faced determined opposition in pushing a repeal referendum through the legislature, he ultimately succeeded, and a vote was set for April 1959. The referendum provided for the package sale of liquor, and it also contained a local option provision.
Edmondson lived up to his promise of vigorous enforcement of the liquor laws. He wanted to give Sooners the choice of voting for legalized liquor or doing without the illegal booze that so many of them continued to imbibe. Commissioner of Public Safety Joe Cannon devised an enforcement method to shut off almost all liquor supplies to the state. Drys hated to admit it, but the enforcement they had long demanded worked against them. The so-called "Cannon raids" affected convention and hotel business in the larger cities, and they annoyed some people unaccustomed to searches of establishments that sold booze. A United Oklahomans group that led the attack against the repeal referendum faced a number of problems they could not overcome.
From Muskogee, in 1971 Edmondson died in Oklahoma City at only 46 years of age from heart failure and is buried in Memorial Park Cemetery here.