Buffalo in the ’30s: The old booze-hidden-in-the-apron trick

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Buffalo News archives

From Jan. 16, 1920, to Dec. 5, 1933, Prohibition was the law of the land … and Buffalo was a center for the import of illegal booze.

In Buffalo and around the country, organized crime grew from Americans’ insatiable thirst for liquor. Spirits were smuggled by the boatload into Western New York from Canada.

While some folks turned to making moonshine or bathtub gin at home, others did their best to figure out a way to bring a nip home from Fort Erie undetected.

Often that worked – but it didn’t work for the man who was arrested wearing this apron of booze under his clothing when he crossed into the U.S. over the Peace Bridge in 1930.

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Steve Cichon

Steve Cichon writes about Buffalo’s pop culture history. His stories of Buffalo's past have appeared more than 1600 times in The Buffalo News. He's a proud Buffalonian helping the world experience the city he loves. Since the earliest days of the internet, Cichon's been creating content celebrating the people, places, and ideas that make Buffalo unique and special. The 25-year veteran of Buffalo radio and television has written five books and curates The Buffalo Stories Archives-- hundreds of thousands of books, images, and audio/visual media which tell the stories of who we are in Western New York.