The Prohibition Era in the United States

The Prohibition Era in the United States appears in the novel as a time of legal interruption and uneven authority: Beech’s saloons close, then reopen under bootleggers, while reservation rules prohibit Indigenous people from possessing or consuming liquor. Its local effects reach beyond drinking. The closures alter Rose Gordon’s livelihood, and the town’s attention to war and commerce helps bury the truth about Johnny Gordon’s death beneath competing stories.

Saloons, closures, and return

For a time, Beech’s saloons shut their doors. Rose Gordon took advantage of the closure to buy a player piano from one of them: an instrument valued at two thousand dollars that she acquired for ten. The episode links the period’s restrictions to a lasting change at the Red Mill, where music would become part of the place’s appeal.

The saloons later reopened cautiously, now operated by bootleggers who drove Hudson automobiles down from Canada. The narration sets this illicit trade against the town’s changing economy and the new highway, turning the return of alcohol into part of a broader local transformation. A comic account of a bootlegger in a Hudson racing an attorney in a Cadillac gives the period the sound of roadside anecdote as well as prohibition-era lawbreaking.

The Red Mill and the town’s changing memory

The former Inn was painted red and renamed the Red Mill. As Beech’s old businesses failed or disappeared, new bartenders arrived and travelers had fewer lodging choices. The restaurant drew visitors from Herndon, including a prosperous crowd made wealthy by the war, who drove down in expensive cars, stopped at bootleggers’ establishments, and then came for chicken at the Red Mill. Rose also served steak, biscuits, salad, and freshly made coffee; the player piano supplied familiar songs for those who stayed to dance.

The town’s attention moved among war, bootlegging, food, and entertainment. World War I had left people struggling to comprehend that men they had known had died in France, while the return of illicit liquor brought new traffic and talk. In that shifting atmosphere, the story of Johnny Gordon’s death became uncertain: some people said he had shot himself, others that he had taken a poison available to doctors, and still others that he had simply disappeared. The narration says the old suicide at the Red Mill drifted into local myth. Rose, meanwhile, was remembered as a determined woman who stayed and turned the place into a roadside business; her son, Peter Gordon, waited tables, and she checked that customers were satisfied.

Reservation rules and unequal restriction

The account also describes a different regime of alcohol prohibition. After Indigenous people were driven from their valley lands and sent to a reservation, the rules there barred liquor from being sold or consumed. The stated justification rested on a racist generalization about Indigenous people and alcohol, while the policy operated within a larger system controlling movement and access to resources.

Leaving the reservation required a permit, granted only for a pressing reason; the account notes that officials seldom faced the question because Indigenous people were left with nowhere to go and no one to shelter them. Firearms were also prohibited, while meat was distributed through the government store. These restrictions are not the same as the temporary closure of Beech’s saloons: the novel places a town’s interrupted liquor trade beside regulations imposed on people already dispossessed of their land, making the unequal reach of authority visible.

Narrative significance

Prohibition is presented through consequences rather than a formal chronology. The bargain on the piano, the bootleggers’ cars, and the busy restaurant show how a ban could redirect commerce and reshape a local gathering place. At the same time, the fading and conflicting accounts of Johnny Gordon’s death show how public attention can displace private tragedy. Set beside the reservation’s enduring rules, the town’s return to drinking also underscores the contrast between a temporary disruption for Beech and the restrictions governing Indigenous people’s everyday lives.