Prohibition history
Prohibition in Arkansas.
Arkansas went dry under its own law in 1915, 5 years ahead of the federal ban, and ratified the 18th Amendment with the rest of the country. Today we list 8 speakeasies and hidden bars in Arkansas.
Prohibition in Arkansas, in order
| 1915 | Statewide prohibition takes effect in Arkansas. |
|---|---|
| 1917–19 | Congress passes the 18th Amendment and sends it to the states. |
| 16 January 1919 | The amendment is ratified nationally. Arkansas 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
Arkansas went dry on its own account in 1915 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 Hot Springs
Arkansas went dry on its own account in 1916. The exception, and it was a conspicuous one, was Hot Springs, which ran gambling, liquor and a national reputation as a place where visitors were not asked questions.
The town was a recognised resort for people who needed to be somewhere quiet, and its accommodation with its own laws lasted for decades after repeal until state raids finally closed the casinos in 1967. Owney Madden, who had run the Cotton Club in Harlem, retired there and lived out his life in the town.
What Arkansas’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 Arkansas used the word “bootlegger” 2,154 times, “speakeasy” 48 times, “blind pig” 15 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 |
|---|---|---|
| March 20, 1920 | “blind pig” | Pine Bluff daily graphic, Pine Bluff |
| April 12, 1920 | “bootlegger” | The Prescott daily news, Prescott |
| May 16, 1920 | “speakeasy” | Pine Bluff daily graphic, Pine Bluff |
| June 4, 1920 | “blind pig” | The Prescott daily news, Prescott |
| July 30, 1920 | “speakeasy” | The courier-index, Marianna |
| September 22, 1920 | “bootlegger” | The Log cabin Democrat, Conway |
| May 21, 1921 | “blind pig” | The Log cabin Democrat, Conway |
| January 12, 1922 | “blind pig” | The Mena weekly star, Mena |
| May 17, 1923 | “bootlegger” | The Nevada County picayune, Prescott |
| May 1, 1924 | “bootlegger” | El Dorado daily news, El Dorado |
| January 24, 1925 | “speakeasy” | El Dorado daily news, El Dorado |
| March 12, 1926 | “blind pig” | Union labor bulletin, Little Rock |
Where to drink in Arkansas now
We currently list 8 speakeasies and hidden bars in Arkansas. The densest are Little Rock (1), Rogers (1), Texarkana (1), Mountain Home (1), Bryant (1), Helena-West Helena (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 Arkansas
Listings cluster where the building stock and the licensing both allow it. These are the Arkansas cities and towns with the most in the directory today.
| Little Rock | 1 listed |
|---|---|
| Rogers | 1 listed |
| Texarkana | 1 listed |
| Mountain Home | 1 listed |
| Bryant | 1 listed |
| Helena-West Helena | 1 listed |
The documented buildings in Arkansas
3 of our Arkansas 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.
| 1923 Banana Club | Ritchie Grocery Building, Texarkana · NRHP ref. 90000900 |
|---|---|
| CRUSH STUDIO | Baxter County Courthouse, Mountain Home · NRHP ref. 95000658 |
| Speakeasy | The Worthen Building, Little Rock · NRHP ref. 100010828 |
Where this state fits
We group Arkansas with the Deep South 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: Tennessee · Kentucky · Louisiana · Alabama · Mississippi.
The parts of the national story that bear most directly on Arkansas: Blind pigs and blind tigers · Moonshine and backwoods stills.
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.