Booze, Badboys and Bootleggers Vol. 2: 1921 The Year of Violence

In 1921, the second year of Prohibition, Northern New York State began to see a more violent kind of criminal entering the illegal liquor business. As more people saw they could make big money smuggling booze across the border, producing it themselves, hauling it to downstate cities or selling it at illegal speakeasies, those in search of easy money were lured into the new "gold rush" that the 18th Amendment's great "Social Experiment" had created. With normally law-abiding citizens turning to illicit sources for wine, beer, and liquor, criminal entrepreneurs in communities from Watertown to Ogdensburg to Champlain saw the path to riches just across the border in Canada. As outnumbered local, county, state, and federal authorities saw how criminals were ignoring them in their pursuit of riches, communities like Canton, Ogdensburg, Watertown, Malone, Massena, and others began to see high-speed pursuits and even gunfights on their streets and he rural roads of the once peaceful North Country. Booze, Badboys & Bootleggers Vol. 2 1921 - The Year of Violence explores the impact of an increasingly violent atmosphere that faced law enforcement and entire communities during the second year of Prohibition.