Prohibition history
Prohibition in Minnesota.
Minnesota 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 23 speakeasies and hidden bars in Minnesota.
Prohibition in Minnesota, in order
| 1917–19 | Congress passes the 18th Amendment and sends it to the states. |
|---|---|
| 16 January 1919 | The amendment is ratified nationally. Minnesota 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
Minnesota 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.
Minnesota 13, and the farm-country still
Stearns County, in central Minnesota, produced a corn whiskey known as Minnesota 13 — named for a hybrid seed corn developed at the state university — that acquired a genuine national reputation for quality and reached Chicago in quantity.
What makes it worth knowing is who made it. This was not organised crime; it was a farming region of German Catholic immigrants, hit hard by agricultural prices, where distilling was a household and parish-adjacent activity conducted more or less openly with the tacit agreement of most of the county. Federal raids were frequent and local juries were not helpful.
The state capital provided the other half of the story. St Paul operated the “O’Connor layover agreement”, under which criminals were left alone provided they checked in with the police, committed no crimes inside the city and paid their way. It made St Paul a recognised safe harbour for most of the decade.
What Minnesota’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 Minnesota used the word “bootlegger” 2,597 times, “blind pig” 143 times, “speakeasy” 130 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 |
|---|---|---|
| January 10, 1920 | “blind pig” | The Duluth rip-saw, Duluth |
| January 24, 1920 | “blind pig” | The labor world, Duluth |
| February 12, 1920 | “blind pig” | The Princeton union, Princeton |
| June 30, 1920 | “blind pig” | The Redwood gazette, Redwood Falls |
| September 17, 1920 | “blind pig” | The Ely miner, Ely |
| November 27, 1920 | “blind pig” | The Duluth rip-saw, Duluth |
| February 4, 1921 | “blind pig” | The Ely miner, Ely |
| March 17, 1922 | “bootlegger” | Morris tribune, Morris |
| March 14, 1923 | “blind pig” | The Redwood gazette, Redwood Falls |
| April 4, 1924 | “bootlegger” | The Mahnomen pioneer, Mahnomen |
| March 25, 1925 | “bootlegger” | Willmar tribune, Willmar |
| February 11, 1926 | “bootlegger” | The prison mirror, Stillwater |
Where to drink in Minnesota now
We currently list 23 speakeasies and hidden bars in Minnesota. The densest are Minneapolis (2), Eagan (2), St. Cloud (1), Anoka (1), Falcon Heights (1), Stillwater (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 Minnesota
Listings cluster where the building stock and the licensing both allow it. These are the Minnesota cities and towns with the most in the directory today.
| Minneapolis | 2 listed |
|---|---|
| Eagan | 2 listed |
| St. Cloud | 1 listed |
| Anoka | 1 listed |
| Falcon Heights | 1 listed |
| Stillwater | 1 listed |
The documented buildings in Minnesota
3 of our Minnesota 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.
| Blue Goose Speakeasy | Fifth Avenue Commercial Buildings, St. Cloud · NRHP ref. 82003053 |
|---|---|
| Nucky's Speakeasy | Anoka Post Office, Anoka · NRHP ref. 79001180 |
| The Lost Dutchman | Hurd House--Anderson Hotel, Wabasha · NRHP ref. 78001566 |
Where this state fits
We group Minnesota 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 · Missouri · Iowa.
The parts of the national story that bear most directly on Minnesota: Canadian whisky and the northern border · 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.