Bootleggers Loot

Tiredman

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A little something we did up called Bootleggers Loot, part 1

It is possible to find some more modern money (1920’s era) in the area of Harriman, Wyoming, in Laramie County close to the state line. It is claimed that, back during the days of Prohibition, there was a very profitable operation in the region which provided liquid refreshments for thirsty customers, outlaws included. This area was an ideal location for a drinking establishment.
If the law was closing in, the bad guys simply crossed the state line and were safely out of reach of the long arm of the law; they were in another jurisdiction.
Because of the illegal nature of bootlegging alcohol, it is a sure bet that these lawbreakers cached money or liquor to avoid attention from lawmen.
more to follow:
 

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Tiredman

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Asking around, one might still hear stories concerning Prohibition days and possible bootleg treasure.
Lot more to go... Harriman, Wyoming.jpg
 

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Tiredman

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But, in spite of their best efforts, bootleggers were sometimes caught as can be seen from the following news clippings of those times:
HERALD DEMOCRAT
Leadville, Colorado
October 31, 1920

MOONSHINERS
ROUNDED UP
––––––––––––
Officers Make Sweeping Raid in Wyoming, Making Capture of Vast Quantity of Material for Distilling Bootleg.
––––––––––––
MUST PAY HEAVY TAX
––––––––––––
Denver, Got. 30—Thirty-five persons are under arrest, and more than $140,000 of moonshine whisky and illicit stills have been confiscated by Wyoming Prohibition officers in a sweeping raid to rid the state of whisky manufacturers and sellers, according to word brought here today by M.C. Wachtel of Denver, who directed the raids.
The confiscated stock, it is alleged, consisted of 650 gallons of moonshine, 400 quarts of beer, 300 sacks of sugar, and numerous mechanical devices used in the operation of stills. One raid, Wachtel said, revealed $87,228 worth of bootleg material. He said it included copper stills, sugar, molasses. mash, grain, and dried fruit, sufficient to load four ordinary freight cars. The whisky confiscated in this raid, officers declared “would retail for not less than $70,000.”
“Persons taken into custody during this raid will be held liable for approximately $175,000 in taxes and penalties imposed by the Federal Government, exclusive of fines and penalties levied by the state and federal courts,” declared Mr. Wachtel.
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Tiredman

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THE MORNING TULSA DAILY WORLD
Tulsa, Oklahoma
February 13, 1921

PICKLED PIGGIES
DEAD GIVEAWAY
–––––––––––
Porkers Eating Prune Mash
Put Officers on Trail.
–––––––––––
CHEYENNE, Wyo., Feb. 12. The unsteady "gait" and hilarious grunts of numerous pigs led to the discovery of a huge still and the seizure of large quantities of "mash" and moonshine paraphernalia in the Star Valley region of Wyoming, according to a story related by federal Prohibition officers here. Moonshiners of Wyoming, it Is safe to say. never again will permit their porkers to exercise their natural talents on a supply or "prune mash." As a walking advertisement of a "blind pig," the real pigs are altogether too successful.
According to the story told by the Federal Prohibition Director, it was due to a rancher's pigs stuffing themselves that a bootlegging gang was unearthed. The Prohibition director staged a series of raid in several sections of Wyoming, netting thirty-four arrests, he said, but the hog episode was the big feature of the raids.
Two of Larson's deputies hid themselves in some bushes near a ranch seventy-five miles from the nearest railroad. There had been reports of huge quantities of liquor being stored in the ranch house. After a wait of several hours, the deputies saw a dozen or more hogs coming down a road from the ranch house behaving strangely.
Occasionally, one pig would start an inordinate squealing and others would gather around and squeal in chorus. As the hogs came closer, they seemed to have great difficulty in maintaining their footing. When they reached the bank of a stream, the officer declares, one after the other jumped into the water, seemingly trying to offset the effect of their meal. The Prohibition officers immediately raided the house from whence the trail of the "hooched-up hogs" led and discovered a quantity of bonded whisky, as well as many hundreds of gallons of "white mule,” and mash. In the hog trough, they found the remains of a yeast and prune mash that the swine had apparently indulged in.
Among those arrested in the statewide raids, according to Larson, was a former Justice of the Peace. in Kemmerer. He maintained, according to the officer, that he was doing the public a real favor in selling them liquor from his personal “private stock" of bonded whiskey, instead of dealing in "bootleggers" products.
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more later ….
 

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Tiredman

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In 1919, when Prohibition outlawed alcoholic beverages, some towns in Wyoming were centers for the sale of sinful pleasures in the region. With Prohibition, law enforcement officers had been given an impossible task: to stamp out the liquor business among people who still very much liked to drink. And, gambling, though illegal, was practiced openly in eateries and saloons, too. After the 1919 Prohibition laws went into effect, liquor, wine, and beer, were often openly available in eating and drinking establishments.
Although Casper was about 150 miles from Laramie, it too became a mecca for bootleggers. At that time, Casper’s population was around 17,000 people, but countless numbers of the citizenry were prostitutes. Wyoming’s oil drilling, refining, mining, ranching and railroad economy attracted a lot of single men with money to spend at Casper’s brothels and speakeasies clustered in the Sandbar district, just northwest of downtown.
Town and county officials, as well as the police and sheriff’s officers had to have known about the city’s illegal activities. But, either they were paid to ignore these crimes of pleasure or believed that arrest and prosecution would be futile since it would be hard to prove in a court of law.
From the beginning, and as Prohibition continued, contempt for the officers and for the law itself continued to spread. Bootleggers made more and more money, and were happy to pay police to leave them alone. Corruption spread through law enforcement from top to bottom. So, in 1919, the Wyoming Legislature set up a new agency specifically to enforce Prohibition statewide. Federal officers were needed whose authority reached statewide.
Governor Robert Carey appointed Fred Crabbe, president of the Wyoming chapter of the Anti-Saloon League, to head the new state Prohibition agency. Crabbe’s first hire was John Cordillo, a former policeman with Prohibition enforcement experience in Colorado. He brought his brother Pete with him, as well as another Colorado policeman named Walter Newell. It did not take them long to make headlines.
According to the Laramie Daily Boomerang in its article entitled, "$22,000 in Booze Seized in Laramie," published in the September 3, 1919 edition, the agents “immediately began an undercover investigation of bootlegging activity along Front Street. A few days later, on August 26, Crabbe and his deputy Daniels, accompanied by the Cordillos and Newell set up a raid in cooperation with local lawmen. The Tuesday night operation was a spectacular success in which six establishments were raided, five men and one woman arrested and 400 gallons of illegal booze, worth an estimated $22,000, was seized.”
Then, two days later, another Boomerang article showed how much director Crabbe appreciated the attention. The September 5, 1919, headline read: “Boomerang Thanked by Crabbe for Its Excellent Write-up on Bootleg Raid.”
But, three days after that celebration turned to sorrow, when the Laramie Daily Boomerang reported the tragic murder of a popular local ranchman. The front page headline of its September 8, 1919, edition read: "Ranchman, with Bullet Hole in Head, Found Dead." This tragic event pushed the spectacular successes of Crabbe’s “bootleg squad” out of the front pages.
 

Tommybuckets

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I believe there's some credibility to these stories. I may or may not have been a "gofer" on a plumbing job where my coworker discovered +$7000 hidden in cans in the wall in a foreclosed house we were re-plumbing. The bills were in great shape except the ones touching the outside of the cans that had rusted. They were rolled one around the other, all different denominations randomly rolled together, two tiers tall in coffee cans. Some or most were what I think are called "limey?" bills from the prohibition and before.
I arrived at an empty job site and saw my coworkers truck doors open, tools and supplies on the ground in a pile and I thought someone had been injured and the crew had rushed to the hospital. Turned out I found them at the shop with a mountain of loot on the card table. They had all jumped in one truck and rushed to the shop which is why they dumped the tools out on the ground lol. Talk about trust. The boss was really cool and made sure we all got some of the old bills. It was a great summer but spending the money was tough since everyone thought it was fake. This and two other chance treasure finds are what got me believing and hooked on treasure. One I definitely can't share and the other I've probably already shared on here. I wish I had known there's a collectible appeal to the old bills. Some CRHer had their mind blown at the banks that summer as the bills came around! Now I love collecting treasure stories almost as much as I love collecting treasure. Again, Mr. tax man this may be an entirely fictional account of what may or may not have happened twenty years ago in another jurisdiction and I am sure all taxes and levys were dutifully reported and paid hehe.
 

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Tiredman

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However, his agents, John and Pete Cordillo and Walter Newell, would go on to be featured in a number of newspapers and other publications anyway. Their story begins with a young ranchman returning to his home near Laramie after a date with his girl:
Western Legal History 11
Summer/Fall 1998:
“On a cool September evening in 1919, 33 year-old Frank Jennings was returning home to his family ranch, 20 miles north of Laramie. The son of former legislator, Isaac N. Jennings, the young man had driven to Laramie earlier in the day to take his girlfriend, Viola Boughton, to the movies. Boughton, who worked as a stenographer at the University of Wyoming, remembered watching young Jennings pull his black Franklin touring car away from the curb in front of the apartment house where he had dropped her off. He clamped a cigar he had recently purchased at Cordiner's Drugstore firmly in his mouth and drove away. The next afternoon, the Rev. F.S. Delo, pastor of the Trinity Evangelical Church, and another man, were returning from Rock River when they saw the car off the side of the Lincoln Highway some 3 1/2 miles north of Laramie. As they passed, the pastor noticed a raised knee barely visible over the dashboard. When they stopped to take a closer look, inside they found Jennings' body lying across the front seat. He had been shot at least three times in the head. One-third of a cigar was found in his lap. Apparently, he had been dead for hours. The discovery led to a massive manhunt that ended with a surprise. The case was to call into question, almost from the beginning, the desirability of a state law enforcement agency being given broad powers to investigate Prohibition cases and bring actions anywhere in the state. Young Jennings had been murdered. The killers worked for Wyoming’s newest agency charged with enforcing the Prohibition laws.”
 

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Tiredman

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Newspapers from 1919 and beyond, go on to tell how this shocking tale continued to unfold:

WYOMING STATE TRIBUNE
Cheyenne, Wyoming
September 11, 1919

MYSTERY SURROUNDS JENNINGS MURDER
––––––––––––
Mystery surrounds the death of Frank Jennings, who was murdered a few miles north of Laramie Sunday night. One witness at the coroner's Inquest testified that he passed the car containing the body of the dead man. The lights were burning out no one was visible, and he went on. Later the coroner passed the car with the body, but the lights were off. Two men were seen near the place where the crime was committed, and it is believed that these turned off the lights. No arrests have been made in Laramie in connection with the case, and the coroner's jury is still working on the case behind closed doors.
Evidence brought out thus far shows that Jennings was shot three times, presumably from an automobile traveling in front and to the left of his own. Robbery is believed to have, been the motive. A reward of $5,000 has been offered for the apprehension of the murderer. Jennings was killed within ten minutes after he left the business district of Laramie.
The Albany County prosecutor, who had some suspicions of his own, decided to question the three state prohibition agents. They testified publicly before a coroner’s jury. Details in the three men’s stories of the night Frank Jennings was killed didn’t match up. There were discrepancies.
This caused the three agents to be arrested and charged in connection with Jennings’ death. Laramie citizens were outraged; there was talk of a lynching. Jennings’ family hired the former chief of police in Denver—the three agents’ former boss—to interrogate them. He questioned them all night in a cell. The next morning, they were moved to Wheatland for their safety.
In the car on the way, Pete Cordillo confessed to the Denver detective that Newell had shot Frank Jennings. They thought they were following the car of a couple of well-known local bootleggers, Cordillo said. When they motioned for the driver to pull over, the car did not stop. So, they began chasing it. Finally, the car veered off the road. Almost immediately, Cordillo said, Newell was out of their car, standing on the running board of Jennings’ car and shooting with his rifle.
 

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Tiredman

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Once the public became aware that Federal agents were suspects in the Jennings murder, they became agitated. This news made it all the way to the nation’s capitol:
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Washington, D.C.
January 21, 1920

GUARD BOOTLEG SQUAD TO PREVENT LYNCHING
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Dry Agents Rushed to Jail After Mob Threatens. Following Wyoming Slaying.
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CHEYENNE. Wyo., Jan. 21.─John and Peter Cordillo, brothers, and Walter Newell, former Prohibition enforcement officers, were rushed today under heavy guard from Laramie and lodged in jail to await trial for the killing of Frank Jennings, a widely known Laramie citizen. The three members of Wyoming's famous “bootleg squad” were held without bail to the March term of criminal court following a preliminary hearing In Laramie which was to be behind barred doors as a precaution against a possible lynching.
 

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Tiredman

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The first of the men was tried on March 30:
SOUTH BEND NEWS
South Bend, Indiana
April 1, 1920

PROHIBITION SLEUTH IS TRIED FOR
DEATH OF MAN
––––––––––––
Member of Bootlegging Squad is Under Indictment For Murder.
––––––––––––
CHEYENNE, Wyo., March 30.─John Cordillo, formerly a member of the Wyoming "bootlegging" squad went on trial today for the murder of Frank Jennings, widely known stockman and son of one of Wyoming's best-known legislators, near Laramie on Feb. 7 last. Judge E.C. Raymond is presiding. Because of the prominence of the state man and sensational evidence promised by both sides, the case has attracted widespread interest.
The prosecution alleges that Jennings was shot -down in cold blood by Cordillo, his brother, Peter Cordillo and Walter Newell, members of the State Prohibition enforcement force, while the young rancher was traveling in his convertible on the road near Laramie at 10 p.m.
Fearing violence at the hands of enraged citizens, authorities removed the three officers from the local jail in Laramie immediately after their arrest. It is said the largest fund that ever figured in a Wyoming criminal case has been raised by friends or the Anti-saloon League of America to defend the Prohibition sleuths. Requests for separate trials for the defendants and a change of venue were granted last month, and John Cordillo is the first to face trial. Peter Cordillo and Newell will be placed on trial immediately upon the conclusion of John Cordillo's case, according to the plans of the prosecution. Evidence that will "rock the State of Wyoming” is promised by the defense.
 

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Tiredman

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HERALD DEMOCRAT
Leadville, Colorado
April 29, 1920

CONVICTED SLAYER TESTIFIES IN
CORDILLO CASE
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CHEYENNE, Wyo., April 28.─ Ralph H. Denbow, who is serving a 14 year term In the penitentiary at Rawlins for murder, today was put on the stand to testify against John Cordillo, accused of having murdered Frank Jennings, State Prohibition agent on the night of September 7th last. This is said to be the first time in the history of the state that a convicted murderer has been used as a witness against another man accused of a similar crime. Denbow, who was convicted of killing a girl, was in jail at Laramie when John and Pete Cordillo and Walter Newell were placed in the prison to protect them from a mob.
He testified that John Cordillo told him, when he asked what the three were in jail for, that they were accused of killing Jennings and added: “The coroner's jury got us out of it all right and they have nothing on us now. We sure put it over on them.”
Viola Broughton. Jennings’ sweetheart, also took the stand today. She told of the last evening she and Jennings spent together before he was killed. About twenty of the state’s witnesses have been examined and about the same number remain to be heard.
 

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Tiredman

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FORT COLLINS COURIER
Fort Collins, Colorado
May 27, 1920

CORDILLO IS GIVEN 15 YEAR SENTENCE
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CHEYENNE, Wyo., May 26.─John Cordillo, a former prohibition officer, was sentenced late today to from 15 to 20 years in the state penitentiary for manslaughter. Cordillo was charged with killing Frank Jennings, a ranch man, in Albany County in September, 1919. Sentence was passed by Judge J.W. Mentzer.

Ultimately, all three men received similar sentences. The Cordillo incident was not the last time federal agents would make headlines in Wyoming. In June 1923, a hidden cache of liquor became the topic of the news. When the Park County sheriff was out of town, the county prosecutor got a tip of a cache of liquor north of Cody, near Cottonwood Creek. He rounded up one of the sheriff’s deputies, and deputized a courthouse janitor.
Then he drove the two men out to the site and dropped them off. Armed with rifles, they waited for the bootleggers to come pick up their hidden booze.
Two men arrived in a car some hours later, stopped near the cache, and loaded up some liquor. Once the booze was in the car, they proceeded to leave. The deputies showed themselves and ordered the men to stop. But the driver, A.E. Carey, stepped on the gas, the Cody Enterprise reported.
The deputies opened fire from 50 feet away. In the passenger’s seat, George “Scotty” Sherrin was killed instantly. Carey was hit in the thigh but kept driving, 60 miles all the way back to Greybull, with his friend’s body “soaking in his own blood on the floor of the car where he slid as he died,” the newspaper reported.
 

uglymailman

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Money left over from bootlegger days may still be out there. When I first joined this site there was a post about a guy detecting on property he hadn't got permission for that found most of a bathtub full of 10 and 20 dollar gold coins. After posting he had sold the coins in one lot for pennies on the dollar he deleted his posts. I don't remember his handle. Maybe someone else remembers the story.
25 yrs. ago, one of my customers who came from Modale,Iowa told me when he was a kid, he and his Dad were cleaning up the estate of a man who had a dock on the Missouri River between Omaha,Neb. and the Mo. line. There was a dock and a small shed and in the shed was an old oil drum mostly full of cash from the 20's/30's. Seems the bootleggers would float the booze that came from Canada down the Mo. River in boats with Minn. numbers then transfer it at this dock to boats with MO. numbers to take on down the river to Kansas City,MO.. A Minn. tagged boat would raise eyebrows in MO..
I would guess it was like the drug money now days. Lot's of money but not always easy to show how ya got it. I know there are warehouses full of cash in Colorado. They can't put pot money in banks and have to have armed guards to watch over the cash. Good luck.
 

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Tiredman

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FORT COLLINS COURIER
Fort Collins, Colorado
June 27, 1923

ONE KILLED, ONE FATALLY WOUNDED IN RUNNING BATTLE AT CODY WITH BOOZE MAKER
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CODY, Wyo., June 27.─One man is dead and another is reported dying at the hospital in Greybull as the result of a running fight between Park County officers and a Federal Prohibition agent and alleged bootleggers who were surprised at a liquor cache. J.H. Sherrin was shot and killed; and A.E. Carey probably fatally wounded in the battle with the agents which began five miles northeast of here and continued from side to side. Other cars joined in the chase. Twenty-eight miles beyond the city, Carey became so weak from the loss of blood that he was forced to surrender. He shut off the power and collapsed just as the officers reached him.
 

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Tiredman

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Prohibition enforcement in Wyoming was not completely fruitless. There were major successes by Prohibition enforcement agents, as evidenced by the following clip:
article.jpg
 

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Tiredman

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Not all of the news of bootlegging days in Wyoming was serious, however. There were some lighter, even humorous, news items like those that follow:
NEW ULM REVIEW
New Ulm, Minnesota
July 6, 1921

STATE GIVES BACK BOOZE
––––––––––––
Court Rules That Man's Hoard
Was Personal Property and
Wrongfully Seized by Peace Officers.
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LARAMIE, Wyo., April 23.─George Longprique, local resident, is being overwhelmed by ardent manifestations of a wide circle of “friends.”
Reason: He has just received thousands of dollars’ worth of liquors and beer, handed over to him by order of the State courts. Sheriff Trabing hauled the truckload of “items” to the home of Longprique under an order of Judge M.C. Brown, who held that this “personal property” was unlawfully seized by Wyoming peace officers. Amid the huzzahs of hundreds of onlookers, Sheriff Trabing transferred the following “items” to Longprique’s cellar:
Fifty-three cases of bonded whiskey.
One ten-gallon jug of gin.
Four three-gallon kegs of “liquor.”
One gallon keg of “liquor.”
Four three-gallon kegs of “liquor.”
Twenty bottles of beer.
Forty bottles “mixed liquors.”
The consignment, estimated at local “bootleg” prices to be worth nearly $20,000, was seized at Longprique’s home in August, 1919, by a squad of state Prohibition officers. Longprique immediately brought action for the return of his “property,” and the decision was rendered in his favor.
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I love reading this kind of stuff thanks for the post
 

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