Prohibition came to Washington State early, with its passage taking effect at 12:01a.m. on January 1, 1916. By 1920, local entrepreneurs were very savvy at brewing "moonshine" in homemade distilleries, or "stills." This pile was only the most recent installment of confiscated stills in Pierce County. (TDL 8/15/1920, pg B-5) G24.1-072

Prohibition--Tacoma; Stills (Distilleries);

Illegal stills at courthouse. Theodore Mohrbacher, Joe Desmond and Jack Bodaylea, left to right, of the county dry squad examine confiscated stills at the county courthouse on January 19, 1924. These are just a few of the dozens of huge liquor stills that will be converted into junk by jail trustees in the near future. The stills are now piled up in the lobby of the county jail. Stills can range in size from small tea kettle types to huge commercial boilers capable of holding hundreds of gallons of mash. The manufacture of alcohol was made illegal by the passage of the 18th amendment and the Volstead Act, which went into effect in January of 1920. Prohibition was abolished with the passage of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution in 1933. (TNT 1-19-24, p. 1) G24.1-074; TPL-9895

Stills (Distilleries); Mohrbacher, Theodore; Desmond, Joe; Bodaylea, Jack;