Liquor, Laws & Life

For as long as the Potlatch Lumber company was open running, the town of Potlatch was a dry one. However, even while the townsfolk were up against the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Anti-Saloon League, as well as the company itself, liquor still made its way into Northern Idaho affording the people living in and around Potlatch a reprieve from the tasks of daily life, it was known to cause mayhem as well.

William Deary, the co-owner of Potlatch Lumber company, had an image in his mind of the perfect company town where workers were productive and sober. There were no bars present; alcohol never flowed through the town, never distracting employees, never causing husbands to abandon their families. Since the company owned the 272 acres that made up Potlatch, Deary's dream could be realized. In order to enforce it, Deary made a rule that all employees had to live within the town limits in company housing. As a result, employees did not own any private property, enabling Deary to set town rules even though Idaho was not a dry state.

While William Deary made a strong attempt to keep his town free of alcohol of all kinds, it did not take long until the Potlatch Lumber Employees discovered various bars in nearby towns as well as Moonshine. Potlatch locals, such as doctors and mill workers crafted moonshine and would deliver and sell it in town as well as in the lumber company's Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) camps scattered throughout the forests surrounding Potlatch.

Many stories have been told about the great lengths the people of Potlatch have gone to in order to spread liquor throughout the town. To hear a first hand account of the secrecy and the gathering of moonshine, watch the video below. It encapsulates a shortened interview featuring Byers Sanderson, the head mechanic for the Potlatch Lumber company as he tells a tale of his youth when he waited all morning in a tree over looking Main Street for Burt Ervin and a man named Ollie to walk along the road and hide their moonshine in the banks of snow. They hid their bottles in the snow so that it would be more difficult for the authorities to find them.

Through the map below, discover where the locals enjoyed music, liquor, fights along with a few places that worked to prohibit the drinking of alcohol.

While the buying, selling and consumption of alcohol was deemed illegal by the head of the Potlatch Lumber Company, William Deary, the people of Potlatch responded resourcefully. A local doctor, Dr. J. S. LePard, made moonshine in a stil in the basement of his office, prescribing it to adults, children and animals alike. At one point, William Deary attempted to shut down his drug store and have him arrested. While the attempt was unsuccessful, the doctor was not the only source of alcohol. Common employees of the lumber mill crafted moonshine stils in their home as well. For example, Byers Sanderson muses over his coworkers and friends who were bootleggers. He speaks of Cougar Jack, "an enormous man" at 6'4''. Sanderson reflects on a time when Cougar Jack was so determined to deliver moonshine that he'd made to a local Civilian Conservation Camp (CCC) that when his car flipped on top of him after he had attempted to drive up a steep grade, Cougar Jack threw the car off of himself and Captain of the camp, along with several doctors later found him at "his place and here he was out slopping the hogs!"

To learn more about the creation of moonshine, watch the video below!

The folks of Northern Idaho cherish their histories. They lived in a micro-chasm in which we can learn so much from whether it be the social interactions regarding drinking, the impact liquor has on an area, as well as the day to day lives of regular people living in a company town.

Kristin Bachman, English 419, University of Idaho

Thanks to Dr. Diane Kelly Riley and Gary Strong for their guidance in helping make this project come together.