Several years ago, the McCleary Museum proudly opened the Moonshine Exhibit in the Brownfield Building. Bill Willis, a long-time museum member, assembled the still that is believed to have been used off the Mox-Chehalis Road during the hay-day of moonshining.
The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified Jan. 16, 1919. It outlawed intoxicating liquors and anything containing a half percent of alcohol qualified as an intoxicating liquor. The Amendment reads, in part: “After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.”
Notice that nowhere does it state it would be illegal to drink it. Since the Amendment was not enforced for a year, the citizens who could afford to stockpile it, did just that. As the stockpiles dwindled the thirst of the nation seemed to grow more intense, and no where more than McCleary, Washington. Ernest Teagle’s book “Out of the Woods” describes the big and little stills that operated all over the woods of East County. He states, “When the nation went dry, McCleary went wet.”
Mat Hufman, East County News editor, wrote on June 11, 1997, “In this self-described hard-working, hard-drinking timber town, there’s a bit of a romantic sense surrounding the Prohibition era and the illegal, yet booming business of moonshine.”
Steve Willis, Bill Willis’s son, said to understand the heritage of McCleary, you need to understand that moonshining was as important as the logging and the timber.
One manufacturer even put a label on the gallon jugs. The label proclaimed “McCleary Moonshine,” on a shield decorated with the red and white bars of the Untied States flag and the stars and moon the manufacturer probably worked under. Its slogan, simple and true, “Made in the Woods.”
As a child growing up in southern Virginia near the Virginia-Tennessee border, Bill Willis served as a lookout for his brother’s still.
“Down there every male child, before the age of 12, learned to make whiskey,” he said with a chuckle. He said the way to make moonshine is to start with a batch of mash — made with corn, sugar, yeast and water — that can be fermented in about a week. Copper is a must because any other metal is cut by alcohol and can lead to alcohol poisoning. After being heated, turned to vapor, run through the coiled copper pipe, the alcohol is condensed and poured through charred wood chips and cotton to filter out fusel oil and other impurities. From there, it is aged in oak barrels and charcoal chips. He recommended it age for six months, although that wasn’t always the case. Sometime the need for money encouraged the moonshiner to sell more quickly.
There’s a story in McCleary about the authorities never finding one particular source of moonshine. They didn’t think to look in the church basement.
As Steve Willis stated, one of the worst things about prohibition was the corrupting influence on government officials. It was difficult to know who the good guys and the bad guys were.
James Morgan, a leading area prohibition agent, made headlines in 1922 when a shootout in the Vancouver area left a lawman and moonshiner dead. Morgan was injured. He was involved in a number of other raids, including guiding agents to a 300-gallon capture of moonshine and five arrests in the Bald Hills of Snohomish County. He was once a candidate for sheriff. He was later convicted for operating a still on his property outside McCleary.
Bill Willis, who owned the Morgan ranch, found the still site with his son, Steve. He said he believed Morgan used his knowledge as a prohibition agent to ace out the competition.
Alcohol did bring down a number of people, including the McCleary town marshal, who was arrested on drunk driving charges and possession of moonshine and beer charges, among others.
The papers of the day are full of charges including one incident in which federal agents “partially wrecked a McCleary rooming house with axes, took two men into custody and returned to Tacoma with a large quantity of forbidden juices,” according to the Morning Olympian’s report of Aug. 13, 1926. Agents found 1,500 quarts of beer and bottles of Scotch and moonshine.
The Morning Olympian reported that children of the McCleary school found liquor in the woods near the schoolhouse and put the liquid into vials to share with classmates. “While none of the children were intoxicated, some of them became rather lively.”
The 18th Amendment has the distinction of being the only amendment to the Constitution to ever be repealed. The 21st Amendment ending Prohibition was ratified on Dec. 5, 1933. The Great Depression had a lot to do with changing peoples’ minds about Prohibition. Men were without work, government was without tax revenue. Repealing the 18th Amendment would open many new job opportunities and lead to the much-needed sales tax revenue.
