Prohibition or Not?

Peggy was born in 1913 and did in fact grow up during "Prohibition". My use of the term to describe the period of her illegal liquor sales may have been a slight misuse of the term but, certianly not an embellishment as was recently claimed by an anonymous commentor. Alcohol was most definitely prohibited in Floyd County throughout the fifty's whether or not it was officially "Prohibition".

Although Prohibition officially ended with the ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933 (when Peggy was 20), Georgia was one of eight states that wouldn't even consider the amendment.

Many southern counties continued to prohibit alcohol sales locally and several still do today. Rome and Floyd county remained dry up into the late fifty's and possibly early 60's because I can still remember it and I was quite young then. As a result, Floyd County, Georgia remained dry up into the early 60's and was a hot bed of boot leggers.

I remember as a child when many Romans made the treck on Friday's after work to either Marietta, Atlanta or Piedmont, Alabama where liquor could be purchased legally and brought home.  Rome had several restaurants where you could bring your own liquor in a brown bag but you couldn't purchase liquor while there. Those that come to mind are Diprima's Steakhouse and private clubs like the Coosa Country Club and the Elks Club.

The local churches were very vocal in their opposition to liquor sales as you can see in their "Open letter to the Grand Jury" below. There was a very real issue of public drunkeness and drugs that was plainly visible. Yet Peggy very successfully ran a back door drive through liquor sales through all of this, which was probably a much more dangerous business than prostitution at the time.

I'm attaching some archived newspaper clippings from Google archives that will give you an idea of the climate;