Prohibition history
Prohibition in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire went dry under its own law in 1918, 2 years ahead of the federal ban, and ratified the 18th Amendment with the rest of the country. Today we list 13 speakeasies and hidden bars in New Hampshire.
Prohibition in New Hampshire, in order
| 1918 | Statewide prohibition takes effect in New Hampshire. |
|---|---|
| 1917–19 | Congress passes the 18th Amendment and sends it to the states. |
| 16 January 1919 | The amendment is ratified nationally. New Hampshire 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
New Hampshire went dry on its own account in 1918 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.
A small state, a thin archive
New Hampshire ratified the 18th Amendment in January 1919. Its Prohibition years were shaped by geography more than by politics: a Canadian border at the top of the state, and the roads south toward Boston.
Almost none of New Hampshire’s 1920s press has been digitised into the Library of Congress archive, which is why the newspaper section of this page is close to empty. That is a gap in the archive, not a finding about how dry anybody was.
What New Hampshire’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 New Hampshire used the word “bootlegger” 1 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 |
|---|---|---|
| July 18, 1925 | “bootlegger” | The White Mountain echo, Bethlehem |
Where to drink in New Hampshire now
We currently list 13 speakeasies and hidden bars in New Hampshire. The densest are Concord (2), Rochester (2), Plymouth (1), Franklin (1), Littleton (1), Keene (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 New Hampshire
Listings cluster where the building stock and the licensing both allow it. These are the New Hampshire cities and towns with the most in the directory today.
| Concord | 2 listed |
|---|---|
| Rochester | 2 listed |
| Plymouth | 1 listed |
| Franklin | 1 listed |
| Littleton | 1 listed |
| Keene | 1 listed |
The documented buildings in New Hampshire
6 of our New Hampshire 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.
| 61 Main Bar & Lounge | Plymouth Historic District, Plymouth · NRHP ref. 86000343 |
|---|---|
| Castro's Back Room | Dunlap Building, Keene · NRHP ref. 04000587 |
| Castro's Back Room | Dunlap Building, Concord · NRHP ref. 04000587 |
| Castro's Back Room | Dunlap Building, Manchester · NRHP ref. 04000587 |
| Castro's Back Room | Dunlap Building · NRHP ref. 04000587 |
| Castro's Back Room | Dunlap Building, Nashua · NRHP ref. 04000587 |
Where this state fits
We group New Hampshire with the Northeast 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: Massachusetts · Rhode Island · Maine · Connecticut · Vermont.
The parts of the national story that bear most directly on New Hampshire: Canadian whisky and the northern border · Rum running and Rum Row.
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.