Author
Draeger, Jim and Mark Speltz
Title
Bottoms Up: A Toast to Wisconsin's Historic Bars & Breweries
Series
Companion to Wisconsin Public Television Series of the same name
Publisher
Wisconsin Historical Society
City
Madison
Date
2012
Original Date
Comments

Contains the following paragraph about Hurley: "Many Wisconsin cities never truly were dry. The most infamous was Hurley, a notorious northern Wisconsin city with a long history of vice. Prohibition agents staged massive raids on Hurley, but each time the saloonkeepers paid their fines and went back to the usual business. On December 27, 1926, federal agents padlocked twenty-nine Hurley saloons in a single day. A 1931 raid closed forty-two saloons resulting in the arrest of sixty people--or one out of every forty Hurley residents. In an economy dependent of revenues from drinking, gambling, and prostitution, local officers looked the other way and the cigty continued its business with routine harassment by enforcement officials."

Libraries
  • UW Madison/Wis Hist Soc