In 1860, Henry Cordes Brown arrived in Denver and purchased several plots of land. In 1888, Brown began constructing the Brown Palace Hotel. He was determined to make it one of the best hotels in Colorado and spared no expense. Its central atrium, fireproof blocks of terracotta, and gold and European import detailing make the building stand out. The construction cost about $1.6 million, $50 million today, and featured Arizona sandstone. In 1916, Colorado became one of the first states to pass Prohibition laws. Temperance was popular among the large population of progressive residents. The general population here did not desire or accept alcohol as readily as people in other Intermountain West states. This is one of the reasons the Brown Palace Hotel felt no need to cater to the middle class. The hotel’s prominence made it a prime location for celebrities, politicians, and social leaders to grab an illegal drink. Due to its prestigious reputation and clientele, authorities never shut the establishment down, despite raiding it multiple times for alcohol. The 18 February 1930 issue of the Rocky Mountain News (Daily) described a large-scale raid conducted by police on the Brown Palace Hotel. Officers stormed room 929 on a tip about liquor distribution at a war veterans' convention. Law enforcement found approximately 116 cases of beer and fifty pints of whisky in the hotel room and arrested five hotel employees for conspiracy to violate Prohibition laws. With a bust this large, the courts threatened to padlock room 929, meaning it would be a “forbidden room,” a place “which none should enter.” The 22 April 1930 issue of the same paper updated the room 929 story. Authorities indicted those arrested during the raid and fined them $300 ($5,700 today). While those associated with the Brown Palace Hotel typically earned higher salaries, this fine was no slap on the wrist. Intense repercussions like these aligned with Colorado’s strong temperance attitude and deterred Prohibition violations. This story also shows how the elite used the Brown Palace Hotel to escape prosecution for alcohol-related crimes. The article indicates that the volume of alcohol found in room 929 suggests someone “higher up” knew about the stash. A key witness testified that former state senator and convention chairman Rice Means rented room 929 and knew “what this room was to be used for.” Despite this, officials never arrested Means. This case shows that large-scale alcohol consumption occurred at the Brown Palace Hotel and how those in power hid behind the establishment’s high-end reputation to evade Prohibition laws. The Brown Palace Hotel’s Prohibition-era history highlights the intersection of wealth, power, and privilege. Despite multiple raids, its prestigious reputation and elite clientele allowed it to maintain alcohol sales. Its role during Prohibition demonstrates how the powerful navigated around the law. Today, the Brown Palace Hotel remains a cornerstone of Denver’s heritage and a symbol of the city’s transnational significance as a hub of influence.

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In early twentieth-century Utah, temperance was popular among many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). The church’s temperance beliefs stemmed from an 1833 doctrine called the “Word of Wisdom,” which church leaders initially treated as guidance for moderate alcohol use. In 1902, Joseph Fielding Smith urged members to view the doctrine instead as a strong suggestion against alcohol. In 1909, this position began influencing state law when Governor William Spry and the legislature passed a local option bill allowing towns to vote on banning alcohol. Many smaller towns voted in favor, while more diverse cities like Ogden and Salt Lake City did not. Despite urban opposition, Utah ratified statewide Prohibition in 1917. In 1921, church president Heber J. Grant aligned church doctrine with state law by declaring alcohol abstinence a requirement. While many LDS members adopted the policy and supported enforcement, an underground drinking culture emerged among other Utahns, especially in Ogden’s 25th Street, also known as Two-Bit Street. In the late nineteenth century, the completion of the continental railroad brought Chinese and Irish rail workers to Utah. By the turn of the century, LDS members still owned most businesses in smaller towns, but Italian, Chinese, Jewish, and Japanese immigrants owned much of Ogden’s commercial district. This demographic shift made Ogden a culturally distinct city, less influenced by the church’s temperance stance. When Prohibition began, Two-Bit Street became known for alcohol stills, speakeasies, and brothels. Business owners often ran legal operations on the ground floor—ice cream, clothing, and soda shops—while concealing illegal activities on the floors above. A notable example of this was the Davenport Saloon, which was located above various short-lived legal businesses like the Night Hawk Café. On 03 January 1922, the Ogden Standard-Examiner reported that police raided an ice cream parlor at 170 25th Street. They found two quarter-full bottles of moonshine whisky and arrested the owner, William Pranthel, who pleaded guilty to possession. He claimed the liquor was for personal use, not for sale, but could not explain why it was at the parlor instead of home. He received a sentence of a $299 fine or 180 days in jail. A month later, the same paper reported that police discovered remnants of a recently abandoned still in the same neighborhood, along with several bottles of homemade wine—but no bootleggers. Prohibition in Utah was more than a legal change—it was a struggle between religious authority and cultural resistance. In Ogden, immigrant families turned Two-Bit Street into a quiet act of defiance, building their own economy behind legal storefronts. It was as much about autonomy as alcohol. While the LDS Church shaped much of the state, Ogden pushed back. Today, Two-Bit Street remains a space where Utah residents challenge law and societal norms.

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James Pratt, proprietor of the Red Boot and Shoe Company, built the Rockwood (also called the Rookwood), in Butte, Montana in 1912. The ground level housed the shoe company’s shop, and the floors above functioned as a hotel. Pratt designed the building to attract attention and business with décor like Tudor-arching, green tile, a copper-clad cornice, a wrought iron staircase, and marble wainscoting and floors. The Rockwood’s unique ambiance and railroad access attracted elite and traveling patrons alike. Before Prohibition, Butte, Montana, boomed as a mining town and gained notoriety for its lively bar and entertainment scene. When the Montana government banned alcohol distribution and consumption in December of 1918, Butte bars moved underground—into basements and tunnels beneath storefronts—and continued to sell alcohol. During this time, over one hundred underground speakeasies, including the Rockwood, operated in the city. In 1918, Pratt converted the building’s basement into a speakeasy. This underground area matched the hotel’s elegance above, attracted numerous clients, and became one of Butte’s more famous drinking spots. In 1923, one of Rockwood’s moonshine clients, Mae Holberg, died by suicide after overconsuming alcohol. The 29 January 1923 issue of The Butte Daily Post describes the harrowing story. Holberg attended an all-night party at the Rockwood. Witnesses and police confirmed this party involved large quantities of illegal liquor. Around 7:00 A.M., Holberg drank one and a half ounces of Lysol, a fatal dose that ended her life within hours. A friend at the party told officers he believed Holberg took her own life because “she was despondent,” he said, “one or two drinks always made her despondent and downhearted.” Tragic stories like this made the Rockwood notorious in the illegal drinking world. After Prohibition ended, Butte’s underground scene lost its appeal. Shop owners no longer needed to hide their liquor, so they moved alcohol sales to street levels, and many permanently sealed off their speakeasies. Rockwood’s basement became one of these buried speakeasies, while the rest operated as a hotel and retail space. In 2004, workers renovating the Rockwood Hotel discovered a closet filled with untouched coats from decades past. Behind the coats, they uncovered a two-way mirror which concealed a hole that opened into the Rockwood Speakeasy—frozen in time since the Prohibition era. This discovery highlights the secretive and exclusive nature of the Rockwood Speakeasy and explains how it remained hidden and operational throughout Prohibition. It is a modern-day time capsule, offering visitors a glimpse into the past. Visitors can imagine stepping into the shoes of a 1920s client—looking into the mirror, giving the bouncer the code, and feeling the thrill of defying Montana’s dry laws.

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In 1897, Patrick J. Quealy founded a town and coal company, naming them “Kemmerer” after his financial backer, Mahlon S. Kemmerer of Pennsylvania. Quealy made Kemmerer an “independent town,” meaning that the coal company sold land to businesses and residents. This attracted immigrant miners and business owners, including those from southern and eastern Europe. Drinking was integral to many of the immigrants’ cultures, which included Italian, Polish, Slovak, and Scottish. This influenced Kemmerer’s freedom-focused Prohibition culture. In 1919, Wyoming passed laws banning alcohol. Kemmerer and its neighboring communities of Diamondville and Frontier formed a triangle network for illegal bootlegging and drinking. During Prohibition, many Kemmerer residents made little effort to hide their drinking, as it was a southern and eastern European cultural norm and popular with the white men who worked the area’s mines. Isabel Burns migrated to Kemmerer in the 1880s and later established the brothel she named the Southern Hotel, which catered to illegal activities like prostitution and drinking. Burns and her successors operated the Southern Hotel for seven decades, throughout all of Prohibition, and continuously offered drinking and prostitution, regardless of legality. For its size, Kemmerer hosted a disproportionately large number of saloons and brothels like the Southern Hotel, which testified to local positive sentiment toward alcohol and cultural autonomy. In addition to establishments like the Southern Hotel, well-documented arrests for alcohol possession and public intoxication highlight the prominence of drinking in Kemmerer during Prohibition. While police were generally tolerant of illegal alcohol consumption—acknowledging the town’s large immigrant population—the widespread nature of drinking still led to arrests, often for disrupting the peace. The Kemmerer Gazette reports indicate that authorities arrested people on alcohol-related charges, typically for public intoxication, operating stills, or alcohol distribution. For example, the 20 April 1927 issue of the paper reported two separate intoxication cases from earlier that month. Both men paid $25 in fines (around $450 today). According to the paper, the first man, E. L. Mitchell, “made his rounds, proceeding to hit the high spots,” and caused a “rucus” at the Kemmerer hotel, thanks to “the potency of Kemmerer’s supply of moonshine, which will give a jackrabbit enough nerve to defy a bulldog.” The second man, a railroad worker from Mexico, “got all corned up on moonshine [then] ran a muck on the streets of Kemmerer.” Authorities incarcerated both men not merely for drinking, but for disorderly public conduct. Kemmerer’s Prohibition history tells not a story of law, but a tale of western mining culture. As immigrants arrived for railroad and mining jobs, they brought customs wherein drinking was a way of life. When Prohibition criminalized that lifestyle, the law did not erase people’s culture. Places like the Southern Hotel thrived not because people wanted to rebel, but because they wanted to keep living as they always had. Kemmerer’s Prohibition history is one of colliding international and mining cultures withstanding the force of national reform.

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In 1907 Charles “Dick” Marlow bought the building that would later become the Mint Bar from a barber and transformed it into the “Mint Saloon,” which locals often referred to as “the Mint.” In 1919, Wyoming passed laws banning the sale and consumption of alcohol unless for prescribed medicinal purposes. At this time, Marlow changed the Mint’s front into a dress shop, then a real estate office, while continuing alcohol sales in the back. In 1923, Oran Moore purchased the Mint, turning it into the “Mint Cigar Company and Soda Shop.” Between 1923 and 1930, Moore operated the Mint’s legal front while maintaining one of Sheridan’s more notorious speakeasies and gambling halls in the back. During this time, law enforcement suspected the Mint of alcohol sales and conducted multiple raids on the location. On 23 June 1925, the Sheridan Post Enterprise published an article describing a moonshine bust at the Mint. Sheridan town sheriffs and a Wyoming state officer raided the Mint at four o’clock in the afternoon. Police discovered one gallon of moonshine whiskey hidden in a coffee pot by employees. The officers arrested Moore and several other employees. The court fined Moore $500. On Tuesday, 23 June 1925, an article appeared in the Sheridan Post Enterprise about the officer’s raid at the Mint. A month later, the paper published a follow-up article on Tuesday, 07 July 1925, which mentioned that the court judge postponed the Mint employees’ trial. Lax police and judicial enforcement meant that raids, arrests, and trials like this never prevented the Mint from selling illegal alcohol. The establishment continued its bootlegging and alcohol sales until the stock market crash of 1929 forced Moore to close its doors. In 1933, the United States’ Twenty-first Amendment ended Prohibition, and Wyoming dissolved its alcohol ban. In 1934, Archie Milson and Robert Thirlwell purchased the establishment and reopened the space as “the Mint Bar.” In 1948, the owner at the time, Lauren L. McVean, renovated the Mint Bar, giving the location its warm rustic style and now iconic bucking horse and cowboy neon sign. Cowboys, locals, travelers, and even celebrities like Ernest Hemingway once again made the bar a popular stop because of its historic charm, great beer, and gambling. The Mint Bar’s story shows how Prohibition reshaped Sheridan without breaking its spirit. The hidden bar was a gathering place for cowboys and townsfolk alike. Raids and fines were a constant threat, but the establishment’s patrons remained loyal. After Prohibition, the Mint Bar never lost its notoriety. Today, “Meet me at the Mint” is now a signature phrase shared between Sheridan locals. The Mint Bar’s history is a nod to Western independence and resilience.

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The building from which the Shooting Star Saloon currently operates was erected around 1850 as a mercantile shop for Native Americans, fur trappers, fur traders, herders, and the small number of settlers of the town. The mercantile switched to a saloon in 1879, originally named Hoken’s Hole for its owner Hoken Olsen. Hoken (1862-1945) was the son of Norwegian immigrants who had converted to Mormonism and moved to Utah in 1876 as part of the “gathering.” He became a citizen of the US in 1902. Hunstville’s early newspapers are filled with accounts of how “Slippery Hoken'' had once more been fined for selling liquor without a license, or sent to jail for the same. His wife Maria Bingham operated the saloon when Hoken was in jail.  During the Prohbition Era in the 1920s, alcoholic drinks and card games were enjoyed in secret and a confectionery shop for children was displayed on the top floor of the saloon. However, Hoken continued to be arrested for selling liquor without a license. In 1929, Hoken sold his property to Ben Wood. In 1940, Huntsville’s Carl Stokes moved the saloon upstairs from the basement and named it the Shooting Star.  The Saloon has had several owners these past years. It is known for its menu, consisting of burgers and hotdogs. There is even a combination of hot dog and burger called the Star Burger. And, of course, there is a full bar of alcoholic beverages. The Saloon’s decor is also of note. Inside, the ceiling is completely covered in dollar bills and has a St. Bernard’s head stuffed and displayed on the wall, belonging to the deceased Buck, a previous Guinness World Record holder for St. Bernards because of its size and weight. “Buck” is a gift from Ernie Schultz who ran a bar in West Yellowstone, Montana. The tables were once used by monks at the nearby Trappist monastery. Antique items such as registers can also be found in the Saloon. The origins of the dollar bill ceiling are unclear. Some say that Whiskey Joe, a patron from decades orevious, began the trend of tacking dollar bills on the ceiling. Whiskey Joe was notorious for never having enough money to pay for his beer. He'd give the bartender a dollar toward his tab, and it would be tacked up on the ceiling. Whiskey Joe would show up the next day with an additional dollar, and so it continued. A few have claimed that Whiskey Joe continues to haunt the saloon. However, Whiskey Joe's legacy is debated. Huntsville librarian Carol Stoker claims that her uncle Charlie left the first dollar bill on the ceiling on his way to fight in World War II, declaring he would use it when he came back. Whatever the real story, today hundreds of dollar bills blanket the ceiling. Names of patrons penned on each one are a sign that they'll be back for another round.

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In 1889, Ogden history changed forever with the opening of the Union Station. The arrival of the railroad brought new life to the town of Ogden as people from all over the nation now stopped in and became acquainted with the previously little-known town. With the increase of visitors, Ogden quickly needed to provide better accommodations for incoming guests. The answer came in the summer of 1889 with the approval of a new 5-story hotel to be built on the corner of Washington and 25th street. The hotel was to be built by E.A. Reed Esquire at the cost of $75,000. Initially the hotel had several struggles and delays in development but it finally opened its doors for business on July 4th 1891. The hotel opened with 130 rooms and had elegant interior furnishings including velvet carpet. The hotel struggled financially early on, even closing briefly in 1893, but it quickly reopened and continued to serve guests to the city.

With the boom in the economy at the heels of World War I, the hotel was completely remodeled in the 1920’s to become a more modern facility. M.S. Eccles and A.P. Bigelow took on the reconstruction project, adding eleven stories to the hotel. With much anticipation, the hotel officially reopened under the new name of The Bigelow Hotel, on March 3rd, 1927. The remodeling was praised for its elegance and quickly became known as a first class hostelry as it was considered one of only 3 grand hotels in Utah. In 1933, the hotel was again renamed as it took on the new title of the Ben Lomond Hotel, named after the local mountain in Weber County.

The hotel is part of the intriguing history of 25th street in Ogden. With the arrival of the railroad on the west end of 25th, many new and interesting personalities descended on Ogden and more specifically on this famous street. Soon after the railroad arrived, brothels infiltrated many of the establishments on this road. With these came much gambling and crime, including many murders. In the 1920’s, the street became known for its many moonshiners selling alcohol illegally during the prohibition. Many of these establishments would hide the alcohol under floorboards, or would have someone posing as a guest to conceal the alcohol under a coat. When a guest came asking for a drink, the bartender would give a signal to the individual who would then secretly come forward with the illegal drink. These are just a few examples of the crime and corruption that permeated this street.

Today, the Bigelow Hotel and 25th street have held onto their compelling history and is true to their historic roots. As one explores the hotel and wanders down 25th they truly feel that they have stepped back almost 100 years into 1920’s Ogden.

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