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Deputy sheriffs find moonshine whiskey at Nick's Place near Kirkland on April 20, 1926.

  • By Greg Lange
  • Posted 2/26/1999
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 954

On April 20, 1926, a search warrant is issued to the King County Sheriff's Department for liquor at Nick's Place located at Five Corners about two miles northeast of Kirkland. Deputy Sheriffs find 18 gallons of moonshine whiskey and five quart bottles of home brew beer.

Prohibition, outlawing the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, took effect in Washington state in 1916. The year 1919 marked ratification of the "bone dry" Prohibition amendment to the U.S. Constitution, making the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages illegal throughout the nation. The Prohibition amendment was repealed in 1933.

Sources: Search Warrant No. 3526, Liquor Search Dockets, Vol. 2, Justice Court, King County, Washington State Archives, Puget Sound Regional Branch, Bellevue Community College campus, Bellevue, Washington.
This file was corrected on April 6, 2006, to state that the 18th Amendment to the Constitution (the national Prohibition amendment) of 1919 prohibited the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages (it did not prohibit possession). See Thomas Pinney, A History of Wine in America: From Prohibition to the Present (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).
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