U.S. Prohibition

U.S. Prohibition appears as the legal and commercial backdrop to a clandestine liquor trade near Sequim. With Canada only fifteen miles across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the town became a lively entry point for spirits; the passage shows how the prohibition-era market supported both an established bootlegger and Joe Rantz’s risky, improvised venture.

Setting and Liquor Trade

During Prohibition, hard spirits entered the Sequim area from across the nearby international boundary. Much of the liquor continued on to the speakeasies of Seattle rowing and labor-conflict city, while at least one bootlegger served customers closer to home. The account presents the trade not as a distant national policy debate but as a local system of supply, concealment, and discreet exchange.

Joe Rantz’s Operation

Byron Noble drove into the outskirts of town every Friday night in a long black Chrysler, leaving hip flasks of gin, rum, or whiskey behind particular fence posts for customers to collect. Joe Rantz and Harry Secor learned the route and, on frosty nights in dark, heavy clothing, followed Noble. They poured liquor from selected flasks into fruit jars, refilled the flasks with dandelion wine brewed in Joe’s barn, and returned them to their hiding places so customers might blame a bad batch rather than suspect theft.

The pair avoided taking from the same spot too often because Noble or one of his customers might be waiting with a shotgun. After each night’s work, Joe delivered the jars of liquor to clients he had cultivated discreetly. Prohibition thus furnishes the conditions for a small, hazardous sideline: the hidden flasks and their fence-post caches become both the means of the scheme and the point at which its danger is concentrated.