These people were called bootleggers.
Bootleggers – the name of bootleggers in the years of U.S. prohibition. “Bootleg” – “boot – leg”, and that flat flask… And although there was an expression during the civil war in America, when soldiers of both the North and the Confederacy was hiding a flask in the shaft, the heyday of this word came to the “dry law”. What crazy tricks do not were bootleggers that despite the bans, capitalize on the weakness of Americans to alcohol.
With the introduction of “dry law” in USA, which operated in the period from 1920 to 1933, there was a special caste of people – bootleggers. Their ingenuity amazes even today.
A van with a secret.
Bootleggers often used the shoes with the soles in the form of a cow’s hoof to hide their traces in the forest. The logic of the invention was simple: police officers and sheriffs who were in the woods looking for secret paths supplies bootleggers, they simply did not pay attention to the traces of hoofs, and tried to find footprints. In 1922 in the now defunct newspaper “the Evening Independent in St. Petersburg, Florida was published a curious story.
Curious leaver.
The Director of the local unit of the Bureau for control over compliance with prohibition A. L. Allen was discovered the new way of how hidden bootleggers, which was named “cow boots”. The cow Shoe is a strip of metal to which is tacked a wooden block carved in the form of a cow hoof. The man who was chained to their shoes these devices leave traces resembling a cow.
Bootlegging Parking lot.
Discovered it was an accident — was found lost a pair of shoes like that near Tampa. From there, “cow boots” were sent to the Central Bureau for control over compliance with the prohibition. Officers of the Bureau eventually came to the opinion that the inventor got his idea from a story about Sherlock Holmes in which the villain shod his horse with shoes that left the prints, similar to the hoof of a cow.
Cow shoes.
By the 1920s, to hide and supply of alcohol have been used all imaginable tricks: the dummies of the Bible to the cans of canned fruit and pork carcasses, full of whisky bottles. Long before Pablo Escobar and the Colombian cartel that sent cocaine through the jungle along the rivers in a homemade submarine, bootleggers used torpedoes loaded with explosives instead of whiskey, which they “shoot” from the canadian shore to the American shore of the Great lakes.
Alcohol the Great lakes.
As the inspector of the Bureau for control over the observance of the dry law went fishing on lake Michigan, when his attention was attracted by two men in the boat, who seemed to be struggling with a monstrous fish. At first he thought that the fishermen caught a sea pig, but looking closely, the inspector realized that it was a torpedo. Requested help, the torpedo boat was towed to shore, where it was found that hazardous cargo is filled with alcohol.
Torpedo.
After the supply of alcohol in the United States ceased, the eyes were on Canada, where laws on alcohol were much more favorable. Located near the canadian border, Detroit was a real city-dream for bootleggers during prohibition. Especially popular with illegal suppliers of the Detroit river, St. Clair
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Goods were transported tied to the bottom of the boat, after which they were transferred through the old underground tunnels from boathouse to houses near the shore. Used even sunken boats to hide underwater delivery system, which along cables hauled metal cylinders containing 50 gallons of booze. One of subsea pipelines became known as the “Windsor-Detroit funnel.”
In the car on the ice…
When rivers and lakes froze in winter, the smugglers simply drove through them on the machines, or went skating on the ice, dragging a sledge filled with whiskey. Often formed the whole caravans, in which up to 75 vehicles were sent on a dangerous journey across a frozen lake. Cars are always driving with a door open so the driver could get out, if the car will fall through the ice.
They failed.
When it comes to bootleggers, often appear to be al Capone and the gangsters harsh. But it earned a fortune, even, for example, of a socialite.
In an era when women were considered delicate floors, they were one of the best Alko-runners” during prohibition. First, in many States, laws were passed which forbade the police to declare the women wanted, so the ladies could bring liquor under a bulky coat and fur coats.
Socialite – hardened bootleggers.
If they were caught, the judges have always given women a weaker punishment compared to men, because no one took the weaker sex, as the worst offenders. Of course, the lady in the full enjoyment of his delicate position in society and often become one of the most important bootleggers.
Coats and coats to help you…
In the world of bootlegging was even one woman who unofficially nicknamed “Queen of the bootleggers,” Gertrude “Cleo” Lithgow. It was considered very similar to the ancient Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, so was nicknamed “Cleo”. A girl, orphaned at a young age, got a job as exporter of alcoholic beverages from London shortly before the adoption of prohibition.
The Queen of the bootleggers.
Pretty soon it controlled the whole business for the supply of rum from the Bahamas, and often she went with the notorious “Alko-runners” to guard his alcohol. Biography Cleo was considered to be an example for all the aspiring bootleggers.
