Prohibition history
Prohibition in Alabama.
Alabama went dry under its own law in 1915, 5 years ahead of the federal ban, and ratified the 18th Amendment with the rest of the country. Today we list 9 speakeasies and hidden bars in Alabama.
Prohibition in Alabama, in order
| 1915 | Statewide prohibition takes effect in Alabama. |
|---|---|
| 1917–19 | Congress passes the 18th Amendment and sends it to the states. |
| 16 January 1919 | The amendment is ratified nationally. Alabama ratified it. |
| 17 January 1920 | National Prohibition begins. |
| 7 April 1933 | The Cullen–Harrison Act legalises 3.2% beer. |
| 5 December 1933 | The 21st Amendment repeals Prohibition. |
What Prohibition looked like here
Alabama went dry on its own account in 1915 and then voted for the national ban, which is the ordinary pattern: the 18th Amendment passed because most of the country had already decided the question. The practical effect of 1920 here was federal rather than legal — the same prohibition, now with agents, courts and padlock injunctions behind it.
What changed most was the supply. A dry state next to a wet one has a border problem. A dry country has a coastline, a Canadian frontier and an industrial-alcohol industry, and from 1920 those became the sources that mattered.
Dry from 1915, and the Birmingham press
Alabama adopted statewide prohibition in 1915, five years ahead of the federal ban, after a decade of argument in which the question split the state’s Democratic party down the middle. By 1920 the enforcement machinery and the illegal trade had both already had years to settle into their habits.
What the newspaper record shows is a state preoccupied with bootlegging rather than with speakeasies: the hit counts below are dominated by that single word, which is the pattern across the rural South. The illegal bar in Alabama was not a Manhattan supper club, it was a back room in a town, and the thing that got reported was the still and the hauler.
Local option still governs here. A number of Alabama counties remain dry or partly dry today, which is an inheritance of this rather than a quirk.
What Alabama’s own newspapers printed
The Library of Congress has digitised a large slice of the American press, and it is searchable. Between 1920 and 1933, papers published in Alabama used the word “bootlegger” 3,129 times, “speakeasy” 46 times, “blind pig” 17 times. Every link below goes to the scanned page itself, free and in the public domain — you are reading the primary source, not our summary of it.
One caveat worth stating plainly: these counts measure what has been digitised as much as what happened. A state whose papers were scanned in bulk will out-score a state whose were not, and a low number here is evidence about an archive rather than about how dry anybody was.
| Date | Term | Newspaper |
|---|---|---|
| February 5, 1920 | “speakeasy” | The Montgomery advertiser, Montgomery |
| April 4, 1920 | “speakeasy” | The Birmingham age-herald, Birmingham |
| September 28, 1920 | “speakeasy” | The Birmingham age-herald, Birmingham |
| March 31, 1921 | “bootlegger” | The Birmingham age-herald, Birmingham |
| June 26, 1921 | “speakeasy” | The Birmingham age-herald, Birmingham |
| July 26, 1921 | “bootlegger” | The Birmingham age-herald, Birmingham |
| August 31, 1921 | “bootlegger” | The Montgomery advertiser, Montgomery |
| March 10, 1922 | “blind pig” | The Birmingham age-herald, Birmingham |
| March 11, 1923 | “bootlegger” | The Birmingham age-herald, Birmingham |
| February 22, 1924 | “blind pig” | The Birmingham age-herald, Birmingham |
| January 6, 1925 | “speakeasy” | The Birmingham age-herald, Birmingham |
| February 1, 1926 | “bootlegger” | The Montgomery advertiser, Montgomery |
Where to drink in Alabama now
We currently list 9 speakeasies and hidden bars in Alabama. The densest are Foley (2), Stevenson (1), Birmingham (1), Sylacauga (1), Mobile (1), Dothan (1). Those are present-day licensed bars — nothing on this site is illegal, and a modern hidden bar is a design decision rather than a legal necessity.
A handful of rooms in most states genuinely date to the period and can show it. Far more claim to. Where a venue’s page makes a historical claim, we label it Documented, Reported, Legend or Venue marketing, and we do not promote marketing into history because it makes a better paragraph.
Where they are in Alabama
Listings cluster where the building stock and the licensing both allow it. These are the Alabama cities and towns with the most in the directory today.
| Foley | 2 listed |
|---|---|
| Stevenson | 1 listed |
| Birmingham | 1 listed |
| Sylacauga | 1 listed |
| Mobile | 1 listed |
| Dothan | 1 listed |
The documented buildings in Alabama
3 of our Alabama listings sit on property recorded on the National Register of Historic Places. That is a federal nomination document with a reference number, written by somebody who had to show their working — a very different kind of evidence from a bar saying its building has a past.
It does not make the bar historic. It makes the building documented, which is the most we can honestly claim and more than most directories claim at all.
| The Blind Tiger | Hotel Russel Erskine, Orange Beach · NRHP ref. 80000713 |
|---|---|
| The Blind Tiger | Hotel Russel Erskine, Huntsville · NRHP ref. 80000713 |
| West Food Bar | Emanuel Building, Mobile · NRHP ref. 78000503 |
Where this state fits
We group Alabama with the Deep South for editorial purposes — regions tuned to drinking culture and Prohibition history rather than to Census divisions, because those are the lines that actually explain what happened. Its neighbours here: Tennessee · Kentucky · Louisiana · Arkansas · Mississippi.
The parts of the national story that bear most directly on Alabama: Blind pigs and blind tigers · Rum running and Rum Row · Moonshine and backwoods stills.
How to read these pages
Each state chronology sets the local dates against the national ones, because Prohibition was never one story. Thirty-three states had already banned liquor before the federal government did; two refused to ratify the amendment at all; and repeal in 1933 handed the question straight back to the states, which is why American liquor law is still fifty systems rather than one.
The newspaper evidence is drawn from Chronicling America, the Library of Congress’s archive of digitised American newspapers. It is public domain, it is free, and we link to the scanned page rather than quoting it, so you can check us.