Omena in the 1920’s. Photo Credit Omena Historical Society
When my two boys were growing up in Northport in the late 70’s, the theme song of the Dukes of Hazzard, the long running well loved TV show, was the background music for our lives. My boys idolized Bo and Luke Duke and their customized 1969 Dodge Charger named General Lee which they leaped into to evade the corrupt law officers Boss Hogg and Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane. Bo and Luke Duke, who lived in a rural area too, were on probation for moonshine running. Perhaps that is why the stories of Omena’s own Blind Pig are so fascinating to me.
Making “Firewater” Photo credit Appalachian History
Prohibition comes to Omena
Beginning in 1915, before the Omena Post Office was officially a Post Office, it was an ice cream parlor and by the way you could pick up your mail there too. Beginning in January of 1920, prohibition went into effect. Around then you also could pick up a jar of Moonshine with your mail if you knew how to do it, according to people I talked to.
Here’s how: you take an empty jar or bottle around to the back of the building, you leave it in a little shed, or just inside the back door, (along with some cash which I imagine went into a slot in a box much like our farm stands have today), go away and come back in a couple of hours and the jar would be filled with Moonshine. It was called “Fire Water for a reason.” Someone bought two bottles of it and put them in one of the boat’s motors that was carboned up and it cleaned the engine right out, this person said.
Moonshine Jars – Credit Longview News Journal
One person was sure what you got was beer, not hard liquor. That may be. According to beerandbrewing.com, beer was not as dangerous to make as liquor, and the ingredients were easy to come by. A lot of people did that during prohibition according to some. Also, Moonshine, which was rarely if ever aged, could be dangerous. The drinkers of it could go blind if the distiller did not remove the methanol naturally generated by the distillation process according to Drink Red Eye. Whether it was beer or whiskey, it was illegal. Luckily, Sheriff Rosco P Coltrane never bothered anyone about it.
Credit: Mark Frank, Vin Moore, Annette Dieble, Marsha Buehler.