Thriller Thursday - Hootch!

My great-grandfather Charles Creeden was county sheriff of Mercer County, Ohio from 1923-1927. One of the issues he dealt with was illegal liquor production during the prohibition era in the US. This article was published in the Lima News on November 28, 1924.

The article goes on to name the farmers and what each of them were caught with. Most of them had stills hidden on their farms and several gallons of whiskey. The lowest fine was $300 for having 1 1/2 gallons of whiskey in the house. The highest was $600 for having a 32 gallon barrel full of liquor, plus 12 gallons of "hootch" in jugs.

According to my father, resentment from the farmers remained a long time after my great-grandfather's term as sheriff. Sometime in the 1940s, Charles took my father to see the farmhouse he grew up in. The farmhouse was on a farm north of town and was no longer in use. The current land owner yelled at them to get off of his land and the farmhouse was burned down a short time after their visit. Charles told my father that the bad blood was due to the arrests he made during prohibition, so it was interesting to see a story about the raids.