Repeal Day!

the death of
a noble experiment

It was 4:32 pm, 75 years ago today. The Chicago Tribune announced that Utah was the 36th and final state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution. At that moment, the 18th Amendment, passed 14 years earlier, was repealed. Originally known as the Volstead Act, it had prohibited the production, sales, and transport of intoxicating liquors within the US as well as their import to and export from foreign countries. And so once again is was legal to whet your whistle in public. The Windy City did not suffer all that much during its 14 years in the desert. Wily entrepreneurs, taking matters into their own hands, opened numerous establishments for those wishing to imbibe without undue notice from Chicago's Finest and the FBI.

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Amazingly, many of these establishments have survived to the present day. Some have changed names along with owners. Others have changed little except for the LCD TVs suspended over the bars.