Prohibition history
Prohibition in Arizona.
Arizona 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 24 speakeasies and hidden bars in Arizona.
Prohibition in Arizona, in order
| 1917–19 | Congress passes the 18th Amendment and sends it to the states. |
|---|---|
| 16 January 1919 | The amendment is ratified nationally. Arizona 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
Arizona 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.
Dry from 1915, and a border
Arizona voted itself dry in 1914, effective at the start of 1915, five years before the federal ban. It also shares a long border with Mexico, where no such law applied, and the border towns did what border towns did everywhere along that line: supplied what was wanted a short walk from where it was illegal.
Enforcement across that much empty country was nominal. The state’s mining towns had drinking cultures older than statehood and no great interest in the amendment.
What Arizona’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 Arizona used the word “bootlegger” 3,401 times, “speakeasy” 394 times, “blind pig” 37 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 13, 1920 | “blind pig” | Bisbee daily review, Bisbee |
| February 21, 1920 | “blind pig” | Bisbee daily review, Bisbee |
| April 25, 1920 | “bootlegger” | Arizona republican, Phoenix |
| August 6, 1920 | “blind pig” | Douglas daily international, Douglas |
| August 7, 1920 | “blind pig” | Douglas daily international, Douglas |
| September 1, 1920 | “blind pig” | Arizona republican, Phoenix |
| September 4, 1920 | “bootlegger” | Arizona republican, Phoenix |
| January 5, 1921 | “bootlegger” | Bisbee daily review, Bisbee |
| March 9, 1922 | “bootlegger” | Arizona republican, Phoenix |
| June 1, 1923 | “blind pig” | The Snowflake herald, Snowflake |
| January 4, 1924 | “bootlegger” | The Coconino sun, Flagstaff |
| July 10, 1925 | “blind pig” | The Coconino sun, Flagstaff |
Where to drink in Arizona now
We currently list 24 speakeasies and hidden bars in Arizona. The densest are Phoenix (5), Tucson (4), Prescott (2), Flagstaff (2), Scottsdale (2), Bisbee (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 Arizona
Listings cluster where the building stock and the licensing both allow it. These are the Arizona cities and towns with the most in the directory today.
| Phoenix | 5 listed |
|---|---|
| Tucson | 4 listed |
| Prescott | 2 listed |
| Flagstaff | 2 listed |
| Scottsdale | 2 listed |
| Bisbee | 1 listed |
The documented buildings in Arizona
1 of our Arizona 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.
| Speakeasy | Weatherford Hotel, Flagstaff · NRHP ref. 78000543 |
|---|
Where this state fits
We group Arizona with the Southwest 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: Texas · Nevada · New Mexico · Utah.
The parts of the national story that bear most directly on Arizona: What people actually drank · How raids worked.
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.