Prohibition history
Prohibition in Missouri.
Missouri had no statewide prohibition before 1920. The 18th Amendment, which the state ratified, closed its legal liquor trade on 17 January that year. Today we list 19 speakeasies and hidden bars in Missouri.
Prohibition in Missouri, in order
| 1917–19 | Congress passes the 18th Amendment and sends it to the states. |
|---|---|
| 16 January 1919 | The amendment is ratified nationally. Missouri 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
Missouri came to Prohibition late, with a legal liquor trade still running on the day the amendment took effect. States in that position lost a visible industry overnight — breweries, distilleries, saloons, the men who worked in them — and the resentment that followed shows up in how little local enforcement there was to speak of.
It also meant there was plant. Breweries that had made beer in 1919 could make it again in 1920 if anyone was willing to risk it, and a good deal of what the federal agents found in the first years was simply the old industry carrying on quietly.
Kansas City, where the clubs never closed
Missouri’s Prohibition history is really two cities. St Louis lost one of the largest brewing industries in the country overnight; Anheuser-Busch survived on near beer, yeast, ice cream and truck bodies, and most of its smaller competitors did not survive at all.
Kansas City did something else entirely. Under the Pendergast machine the city essentially declined to enforce Prohibition, and the clubs on 12th and 18th Streets ran openly and late for the whole period.
What came out of that is a distinct and enormously influential style of jazz — built on long jam sessions, riff arrangements and a relentless rhythm section — because musicians could play all night, six nights a week, for years. Count Basie’s band, Lester Young, Mary Lou Williams and the young Charlie Parker all came out of rooms that stayed open because the mayor had no interest in closing them.
What Missouri’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 Missouri used the word “bootlegger” 542 times, “blind pig” 6 times, “speakeasy” 3 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 |
|---|---|---|
| May 5, 1920 | “bootlegger” | Potosi journal, Potosi |
| May 20, 1920 | “bootlegger” | The Hayti herald, Hayti |
| July 23, 1920 | “blind pig” | The Holt County sentinel, Oregon |
| October 14, 1920 | “bootlegger” | The Hayti herald, Hayti |
| January 19, 1921 | “blind pig” | The Columbia evening Missourian, Columbia |
| February 24, 1921 | “bootlegger” | The Jasper news, Jasper |
| September 1, 1921 | “bootlegger” | The Butler weekly times and the Bates County record, Butler |
| April 20, 1922 | “bootlegger” | The Butler weekly times and the Bates County record, Butler |
Where to drink in Missouri now
We currently list 19 speakeasies and hidden bars in Missouri. The densest are St. Louis (6), Kansas City (5), Branson (2), Wentzville (1), North Kansas City (1), Eldon (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 Missouri
Listings cluster where the building stock and the licensing both allow it. These are the Missouri cities and towns with the most in the directory today.
| St. Louis | 6 listed |
|---|---|
| Kansas City | 5 listed |
| Branson | 2 listed |
| Wentzville | 1 listed |
| North Kansas City | 1 listed |
| Eldon | 1 listed |
The documented buildings in Missouri
5 of our Missouri 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.
| Hush Speakeasy | Coates House Hotel, Kansas City · NRHP ref. 72000715 |
|---|---|
| Manifesto | Liquid Carbonic Company Building, Kansas City · NRHP ref. 94000365 |
| P.S. Speakeasy | Hotel Phillips, Kansas City · NRHP ref. 79001369 |
| Thaxton Speakeasy | City Club Building, St. Louis · NRHP ref. 02000610 |
| VooDoo Saint Louis | Peters Shoe Company Building, St. Louis · NRHP ref. 84002663 |
Where this state fits
We group Missouri with the Midwest 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: Illinois · Ohio · Wisconsin · Michigan · Indiana · Minnesota · Iowa.
The parts of the national story that bear most directly on Missouri: Moonshine and backwoods stills · 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.