How do you get into The Library at Detention?
We have not confirmed it. The Library at Detention is in the directory because it a password you have to know, and that is the whole of what we can stand behind about its door.
Drinks of the era
We have not seen this venue’s own list, so what follows is the period rather than the bar: Corpse Reviver No. 2, Twentieth Century, and White Lady are all drinks of this era, and each links to its origin and its build.
Where The Library at Detention sits
The Library at Detention is in Fresno, California, in the county of the same name, in the West of the United States.
This is currently the only verified hidden bar our directory lists in Fresno. If you know another, tell us.
California holds 173 listed venues in this directory. See them all on our California speakeasy guide.
Prohibition in California
California came under national prohibition on 17 January 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment took effect and the Volstead Act defined an intoxicating beverage as anything above one half of one per cent alcohol — a threshold strict enough to close breweries that had expected to survive.
More on the period in our history of Prohibition in California.
What the newspapers recorded in California
Searching the Library of Congress run of California newspapers for speakeasy, blind pig and bootlegger across 1920 to 1933 returns dated pages anyone can open. These are from California:
- La prensa, March 6, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- Imperial Valley press, June 14, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- Imperial Valley press, October 18, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
- Imperial Valley press, November 5, 1920 — read the page at the Library of Congress
Planning a visit
You can reach The Library at Detention by phone on (559) 231-0968, through its own website, and on Facebook.
The address is 750 E Olive Ave, Fresno, CA 93728. Open in Google Maps.
What we have confirmed
For The Library at Detention we hold street address, telephone number, official website, and social accounts. We do not yet hold opening hours, a published drinks list, an online booking link, or a listed-building record.
It is in the directory because its own name uses a concealment trope and the map tags on the record mark it a cocktail bar.
Overture Maps carries this venue; OpenStreetMap has no matching record.
The source data classifies the premises as a bar.