Enumclaw's Affair with Alcohol and Tobacco

History of Enumclaw Index

Alcohol--A History of Consumption and Production Around Enumclaw

In its centennial year, Enumclaw is hosting a Pub Crawl, Wine Walk, Wine and Chocolate Festival, and Octoberfest, among other events for the imbiber.  Many of our restaurants serve wine and beer and we have several taverns.  We have a brewery, a winery, and a distillery in our neighborhood, and a wine shop in the center of town.  But it was not always so.  Even though Enumclaw had a drinking establishment from its very beginnings, we had a long dry spell--at least officially.  We also had a thriving bootleg industry.

Frank Stevenson lobbied hard for a railroad siding in Enumclaw because he saw it as a catalyst for the town's growth.  He also realized the railroad workers would have money to spend and nothing to do at the end of the day in this remote place, so saloons were a natural for bringing startup cash to the new settlement. He gave his father-in-law a free lot right across from the tracks, and Sam Fell's saloon became the first business in town.  A second tavern was not far behind.

Josephine Putmann (Kincade), who arrived in Enumclaw in 1891, recalls her from her childhood,  "It seemed to me like every other building was a saloon.  Well, maybe there wasn't so many, but I can recall when my brother and I walked to town barefoot and my brother said, 'You want to see the birds in there?'  And so he took me into Sam Lafromboise's saloon.  I was about six years old, barefoot girl!  He had some stuffed owls.  I can recall the men looking at me.  Of course, no woman ever went in a place like that.  But my brother took me in there.  How come he'd seen them, he must have gone in with his dad.  I saw the birds!....I came out as soon as I saw the birds, but no, I wasn't scared.  You didn't get scared of everything those days....."1

Mill workers and loggers around Boise Creek drank in their own tavern or teetered across the river to Buckley.  The miners in Franklin also liked to drink, and patronized their saloon and the notoriously wild one in nearby Krain.  Wilkeson had enough drinkers to support ten taverns. 

In contrast to some of our neighboring towns where the work attracted single men, many of the people living around Enumclaw were farmers with families.  They found a way to make a lot of money from other people's drinking, and in a more indirect way than saloons--for several years, hops were a huge cash crop.  Temperate folks had a way to enjoy the fruits of alcohol but were isolated from its evils.  Even women and kids could earn spending money and socialize at picking time.

There wasn't much to do here when you weren't working to survive, so the watering holes became social gathering places for the men.  However, our  saloons were relatively tame, a least compared to those in Krain, Buckley and Wilkeson, and at least as local pioneers remembered several decades later. 

Mrs. Kincaid was interviewed around 1970.  She was asked,

"Do you ever recall anybody shooting anybody or wild tales or anything like that?"

"No, they never went that far.  No, I don't even recall them having any fist fights."

"Well, were the saloons more of a meeting place?"

"Well, I guess they did.  They weren't like they are now.  They used to gather there a lot and have a social evening, the men."

"The women didn't go in there?"

"No, the women never went into the saloons.

"Were there saloon girls in all these saloons?"

"No, a lady didn't go in those days, no, nothing like that.  Just the men.....  They might have had them up in the Klondike, but not here....  No, there were no ladies in saloons those days.  No, the women stayed more in their homes those days."1

Interviewer Noelle Fingerson asked Art Lafromboise how Enumclaw compared with its neighbors:

"Well, there was only one saloon at Carbonado.  Carbonado, oh, yeah.  Well, Wilkeson had 8 or 10.  That was the big coal-mining center.  Yeah, they were wild up there, but not here.

"Is that right?  Never had any saloon girls or anything like that?"

"No, no.  They never had any other girls, too!  They had them in Buckley.  Had two houses, and so did Wilkeson."

"I thought Enumclaw had one."

"Never!  Never!  My dad wouldn't allow them.  They was against his morals.  They had to cross the river to Buckley or Wilkeson.  You can bet on that one.  One guy tried it and he got horsewhipped. . . .  Of course, women weren't allowed in those--no women could go in."

"Did Enumclaw have dance hall girls?"

"Oh, no, no, no.  No!"

"Did you have a lot of fights in the saloons?"

"No.  Oh, some of them did, but some of them, a man get a couple drinks, he'd have to get out.  Go.  Go."2

Other accounts suggest that early Enumclaw was not quite so tame as some of those interviewed might have suggested, but it is well known that the people of Enumclaw did enjoy their drink.  The upstanding society folk had a field day when a train carrying 45 barrels of wine crashed by the White River trestle.3   Many of those who went down by the river to watch sampled the goods (See Enumclaw's Early Neighbors).  And Rufus Smith recounted another story of how some of the town leaders partook:

"[Butch Weimar] was German.  He loved his beer and made good beer.  I sampled it, I know.  He was a great friend of A.G. Hanson and Elmer Olson and the Catholic priest and they used to have parties at Butch's, beer parties and supper parties and so forth."4  

Anti-alcohol sentiment was building around the country, and Enumclaw was no exception.  "Dr. Horn, the resident doctor, was a very strict temperance man.  So the boys thought it would be a good joke to decorate his drug store by placing a lot of empty beer kegs on a bench in front of the store and putting a lot of bottles on top of his store front.  All of which made him very angry.  But nobody knew who did it."5 

Those who railed against the evils of drink eventually got their way.  The Women's Christian Temperance Union was the most outspoken opponent of alcohol sale and use, and in 1916, together with a most unlikely coalition (the KKK, certain labor unions, the Seventh Day Adventist Church,  Workers of the World)6, successfully lobbied in Washington State for the strictest anti-alcohol law in the nation.  It banned all alcoholic beverages except for small amounts of imported liquors.  Even that exception was eliminated three years later, with the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

During Prohibition, Enumclaw-area booze had a reputation for high quality and potency, and drew buyers from Seattle and beyond.  At one location, customers would find their product at a prescribed location in a ditch and leave the money in a box.  Either the honor system prevailed, or they were being closely watched.  And according to Louise Poppleton, white raisins were believed to be primary ingredient for local white lightning, a theory substantiated by the discovery of two tons in a press in Boise Creek.7

That was hardly the only time the federal agents came to visit.  "It was just great to be downtown when a warning came in from Seattle that the 'Feds are coming.'  They could close up the back doors and get the card players to playing cards and get the money off the tables and then they'd come and somebody would know about it.  The people had been warned in their stills to get everything hidden. . . .

"Some of us boys, we'd have a lot of fun.  We'd go out with them.  Go out into the country on our bicycles and we'd follow people out and we just loved to see how these Federal People would come out from Seattle and chop up these stills they'd find in somebody's barn, some perfectly innocent person's looking barn.  Looked like they had a good dairy business but it was a storage barn for---well, what would give it away would be the smell of the mash and the hops cooking or whatever went on there.  There was a malty smell all over the neighborhood and it didn't take long to follow the wind where it was coming from and then somebody would call.  The destruction was beautiful thought.  I got a picture and I don't dare show it of a couple of men holding samples of coils and funnels and things like that.  One thing I can mention for the record is that out near Newaukum Creek there was a little place out there that couldn't possibly make this much moonshine.  They had so many labels out here they had to buy it.  Somebody was making it out near White River and wholesaling it in five-gallon cans and the little plant out here through the well-hidden bushes was where they rebottled it.  So one of my friends who lived on the other street and I went down the trail and we found the spot.  Nobody was there so we swiped a lot of the labels.  They were beautiful white labels that went on little crooked pint jars that would fit in the back of your pocket, fit in your hip pocket, and it said "White Mule, a kick in every drop."  That's all it said.  Oh, "manufactured in Western Washington."8

In much of the Puget Sound area, bootleggers were assisted by corrupt law enforcement officials, 9 but Enumclaw appears to have been an exception.   Although the moonshiners were active in the neighborhood, Tom Smith made numerous raids in the hills around Enumclaw.  Two of the most notable were in 1917 and 1925, when he discovered more than 700 gallons in each.10 

Prohibition provided a big income to the bootleggers, but it temporarily ended the business of one local resident in particular.  John Kochevar operated the Rainer beer distributorship for the area.  Shortly after coming to Enumclaw he had headed up to Alaska for the gold rush, but returned and built the Krain Store.  His son remembered:

"That's when he met my mother.  He went to Seattle and was working for the Rainier Brewery the year I was born.  In 1913, he came back here and started a beer wholesale distributorship and we still operate it.  We're the oldest distributor of Rainier Brewery in the state."11 

However, Prohibition was repealed in 1933 after fourteen yeas of dry, and Kochevar restarted his company.

"Well, first he was put out of business by prohibition and then when they repealed the eighteenth amendment, why, he got his distributorship for beer back and operated ever since.  It's grown quite a bit.  We three sons bought it from him and have been operating it.  Of course, I've since retired.  My two brothers are operating it now."11

After repeal, beer and wine could be again be bought in stores and consumed in taverns and restaurants, but spirits were available only in state liquor stores until 1948, when hard liquor again became legal in licensed restaurants and bars.  But from the end of 1933 through 2012, the state was the sole distributor and primary retailer of liqueurs and spirits here.  Last June Enumclaw's liquor store closed as sales moved to our grocery stores

Breweries reopened right away after the fourteen years of dry.  Wineries had a slow rebirth, but exploded half a century later.  Washington, however, had almost no distilling until recently.  Northwest Distilleries operated in Seattle for a few years after Prohibition, and Dry Fly Distilleries opened in Spokane in 2007, but a new law opened the door for small, local craft distillers in 1908.  Today we have Rockridge Winery and Distillery right here in Enumclaw and Elk Head Brewery across the river.

Tobacco Products--A History of Production, Restrictions, and Use in Enumclaw

Alcohol was not alone with its history of consumers versus critics here.  Early Enumclaw had a cigar factory and several tobacco/confectionary stores.  You could get your nicotine and penny candy at the same store.

But in 1893, Washington was the first state in the nation to ban the sale of cigarettes to anyone, minors or adults.  It was repealed twice as unenforceable, but not until eighteen years later did the law go away, four years longer than prohibition survived.14 

In an interview, Art Lafromboise talked about cigarettes in the early days:

"Cigarettes were outlawed!  They were against the law.  They used to bootleg cigarettes.  Man, it was against the law to smoke in public for a while. . . ."

"You mean it was actually against the law for men to smoke?"

"Yeah.  Cigarettes."

"Cigarettes.  But they could chaw tobacco or have a cigar or pipe?"

"There was a lot of them chewed tobacco, you know.  The Star and Horseshoe.  They used to go into the grocery store and chewing tobacco was quite a --a lot of people chewed tobacco, but we never had.  My dad never let--anybody smoked a cigarette was a man of ill-fame, you know.  We lived on a farm.  He smoked a cigar once in a while.  He thought he had to smoke a cigar and he didn't smoke!"12 

Even though Lafromboise said that he and his friends didn't sneak cigarettes into school, others brought their chew.  Pete Rasmussen remembered his early days at the Krain School:  "One Julius Nicholas chewed tobacco in school, and when the teacher got too close, he swallowed it and got plenty sick."13

Not until 2005 did tobacco appear in the lawmakers' crosshairs, as its links to cancer and numerous other health risks became well documented.  Rather than banning tobacco products entirely, the focus shifted to smoking in public, since it dealt with harm to the public rather than the user.  In 2005, Washington passed its landmark anti-smoking law, one of the strictest in the nation.15  So today in Enumclaw, you can't smoke in public buildings, even taverns, so people slip out into an alley for their nicotine fix.  And you can no longer buy tobacco in our confectionary shops--well, they're gone anyway--but there is always Top Smoke on the corner of Garrett Street and Stevenson Avenue.

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NOTES

     1.  Interview with Josephine Putmann Kincade.  Washington Rural Heritage Collections.  p. 22. 

     2.   Interview with Arthur Lafromboise.  Washington Rural Heritage Collections.  1973.  p. 2. 

     3.  Interview with Houston Allen. Washington Rural Heritage Collections.  p. 13

     4.  Interview with Rufus Smith.  Washington Rural Heritage Collections.  p. 10. 

     5.  "Early Days Spent in Enumclaw".  Charles A. Coe.  Pioneer History of Enumclaw.  Women's Progressive Club.  p 59.  

     6.  "Stills in the Hills:  Homemade Hootch in the Age of Prohibition".  The White River Museum Newsletter.  June 2012.  p. 1.

     7.  Louise Poppleton.  There Is Only One Enumclaw.  1995. p. 101.

     8.  Interview with Houston Allen. Washington Rural Heritage Collections.  p.

     9.  "Stills in the Hills:  Homemade Hootch in the Age of Prohibition".  The White River Museum Newsletter.  June 2012.  p. 1.

     10.  Louise Poppleton.  There Is Only One Enumclaw.  1995. p. 101.

     11.   Interview with Ernest Kochevar and Matt Paschich.  Washington Rural Heritage Collections.  1976.  p. 3. 

     12.   Interview with Arthur Lafromboise.  Washington Rural Heritage Collections.  1973.  p. 2. 

     13.  "The Rasmussen Family".  Peter Rasmussen, as told to Mrs. R.W. Thomson.  Pioneer History of Enumclaw.  Women's Progressive Club.  p 59.  

     14.  "Cigarette Prohibition in Washington, 1893-1911".  Historylink,org Essay 5339.

     15.  "Strict anti-smoking law goes into effect in Washington state on December 8, 2005".  Historylink.org Essay 7940.

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ENUMCLAW CENTENNIAL BLOG SERIES

The Histories of Enumclaw

Introduction--Enumclaw:  The First 6020 Years

Early Enumclaw:  6000 Years Ago to the Mid-1800s

Early Enumclaw:  The First European Americans Arrive

          The Adventures of Allen Porter's Wagon

Enumclaw's Early Plateau Neighbors

           Schools and Districts

           Franklin

           Enumclaw's Railroads

Enumclaw Becomes a Town:  1879-1913

          Enumclaw Cooperatives

          Historic Houses In and Around Enumclaw

Incorporation through World War II:  Enumclaw from 1913-1945

          Logging and Lumber

          Enumclaw's Affair with Alcohol and Tobacco

          Tom Smith, Enumclaw Town Marshall

          Local Elders Know This History

Growth and Prosperity:  Enumclaw from 1945-2008

          History of the Garden

          120 Years of Churches in Enumclaw

          From Puncheon Roads to Scenic Byway

Recent Past to the Present:  Enumclaw from 2008-2013

          A History of Banking in Enumclaw

          Enumclaw News Over the Years

          Picnics, Parades, Fairs, and Festivals

          Bill Kombol Receives 2013 History Award

Enumclaw's Next Two Decades:  2013-2033

          The Limits of Growth

          Alternative Futures