Woman uses resources to help with Bootlegging

A Peep into the Past Vol II pg 23 Gordon and Belle Hall

For Albertans who liked their beer and hard liquor, July 1, 1916 prohibition was welcomed with all the enthusiasm of an earthquake or a prairie tornado. For the members of the Temperance and Moral Reform League, T.H. Miller, W.F. Gold and A.T. Cushing and authoress Nellie McClung and many others, it was a day for celebration, without liquor of course. For some bold men who were eager to make a fast buck – it was a day of challenge. With liquor and beer over 22 percent alcohol declared illegal, they would have to see that, somehow or other, burning thirsts were quenched. A bit risky, perhaps, but with huge profits involved, well, they would just have to take a few risks.

Bootlegging was not new in Alberta. It predated the arrival of the North West Mounted Police in 1874. It waned for a time but bloomed again with the arrival of the construction gangs building the Canadian Pacific Railway. Of all the members of the oldtime mounted police who struck terror in the hearts of the makers and distributors of illicit hootch, probably none surpassed Sergeant Thorne who with a detachment of mounted police were assigned the task of keeping the western end of Alberta section whiskey free.

It was no easy task, for hundreds of thirsty construction workers with money burning holes in their pockets, were clamoring for booze and dozens of eager bootleggers were doing their best to see that they got it.

For quite a time one lovely blond woman led Sgt. Thorne and his men a merry chase. Time after time she would show up at one camp or another, with the story she was looking for her brother. As sure as the sun rises in the east, after each visit, singing shouting and sometimes fighting would break out in camp and many of the men appeared to be intoxicated. None of the Mounties could ever recall her bringing anything more sinister looking than a batch of cookies into camp. Yet the evidence pointed to the fact that somehow the lady was sneaking booze into the camps. Finally, it dawned on Sergeant Thorne that the lovely lady appeared considerably thicker around the middle when she arrived than when she departed. He quickly summoned a police matron and waited for the next time the blond appeared at one of the camps. The resultant arrest and search revealed a rather startling development. For around her waist the young lady wore a rubber tube that held a gallon of hootch. A nozzle protruding from an ingenious belt buckle made dispensing quick and simple. A flip of the buckle, a slight contraction of abdominal muscles and presto, out came the booze, a stream sufficient to fill a two-ounce shot glass in a couple of seconds