Prohibition history
Prohibition in Colorado.
Colorado went dry under its own law in 1916, 4 years ahead of the federal ban, and ratified the 18th Amendment with the rest of the country. Today we list 35 speakeasies and hidden bars in Colorado.
Prohibition in Colorado, in order
| 1916 | Statewide prohibition takes effect in Colorado. |
|---|---|
| 1917–19 | Congress passes the 18th Amendment and sends it to the states. |
| 16 January 1919 | The amendment is ratified nationally. Colorado 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
Colorado went dry on its own account in 1916 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 1916, and a brewery that made porcelain
Colorado went dry on 1 January 1916, four years ahead of the federal ban, and it cost the state a brewing industry. Adolph Coors turned the Golden plant to malted milk, near beer and — most durably — porcelain and chemical products, and the ceramics business outlasted Prohibition by decades.
The state’s southern counties and the mountain towns supplied what the law did not. Denver’s trade was run with the usual mixture of corruption and violence, and the state’s long, empty roads made interdiction close to theoretical.
What Colorado’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 Colorado used the word “bootlegger” 1,048 times, “blind pig” 9 times, “speakeasy” 5 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 |
|---|---|---|
| January 29, 1920 | “bootlegger” | The Holly chieftain, Holly |
| March 11, 1920 | “bootlegger” | The Canon City record with which is consolidated the Canon City cannon, Canon City |
| March 18, 1920 | “bootlegger” | Gilpin observer, Central City |
| July 8, 1920 | “blind pig” | Gilpin observer, Central City |
| January 26, 1921 | “bootlegger” | The Denver Jewish news, Denver |
| March 13, 1921 | “bootlegger” | Pueblo chieftain, Pueblo |
| May 24, 1921 | “bootlegger” | Pueblo chieftain, Pueblo |
| January 4, 1922 | “speakeasy” | The Denver Jewish news, Denver |
| January 26, 1923 | “blind pig” | Gunnison news-champion, Gunnison |
| March 15, 1924 | “bootlegger” | The Colorado statesman, Denver |
| April 12, 1930 | “speakeasy” | El democrata del condado de Costilla, San Luis |
Where to drink in Colorado now
We currently list 35 speakeasies and hidden bars in Colorado. The densest are Denver (10), Colorado Springs (7), Vail (2), Boulder (2), Pueblo (1), Loveland (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 Colorado
Listings cluster where the building stock and the licensing both allow it. These are the Colorado cities and towns with the most in the directory today.
| Denver | 10 listed |
|---|---|
| Colorado Springs | 7 listed |
| Vail | 2 listed |
| Boulder | 2 listed |
| Pueblo | 1 listed |
| Loveland | 1 listed |
The documented buildings in Colorado
4 of our Colorado 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.
| Golden Moon Speakeasy | Astor House Hotel, Golden · NRHP ref. 73000478 |
|---|---|
| The Speakeasy | Dickens Opera House, Longmont · NRHP ref. 87000702 |
| Trybal African Speakeasy | Kistler Stationery Company Building, Denver · NRHP ref. 97000298 |
| hidden peak tiki lounge | Westcliffe Jail, Westcliffe · NRHP ref. 92001846 |
Where this state fits
We group Colorado with the West 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: California · Oregon · Washington · Montana · Hawaii · Idaho · Wyoming · Alaska.
The parts of the national story that bear most directly on Colorado: Blind pigs and blind tigers · Near beer and the breweries that survived.
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.