Prohibition’s Proving Ground: Cops, Cars, & Rumrunners in the Toledo-Detroit-Windsor Corridor by Joseph Boggs (review)

Reviewed by: Prohibition’s Proving Ground: Cops, Cars, & Rumrunners in the Toledo-Detroit-Windsor Corridor by Joseph Boggs Adam Pole Joseph Boggs. Prohibition’s Proving Ground: Cops, Cars, & Rumrunners in the Toledo-Detroit-Windsor Corridor. Toledo: The University of Toledo Press, 2020. Pp. 237. Bibliography. Index. Images. Notes. Paperback: $24.95. Borders present opportunities for criminals and challenges for police. They can also draw the attention of historians. Joseph Boggs’ study of Prohibition in the Great Lakes region seeks to answer the question: how did the region’s car culture shape bootlegging and prohibition enforcement? This book will appeal to those interested in the Great Lakes region, policing, automobiles, and the Prohibition Era. The geographic focus of the book is what Boggs calls the Toledo-Detroit-Windsor Corridor, which is the area from Toledo to Detroit, along Lake Erie and the Detroit River, as well as Windsor, Ontario, across the Detroit River. His study is thus both regional and international, encompassing Lucas County in northwestern Ohio, Monroe and Wayne Counties in southeastern Michigan, and Essex County in southwestern Ontario. This corridor, the epicenter of the automobile world, presented challenges to police enforcing dry regulations. One such challenge was the Detroit River itself, which—particularly when frozen in winter—created a porous international border that was difficult and dangerous to patrol and intercept rumrunners driving across the river. The second challenge, and the focus of Boggs’ study, was the ways in which the region’s car culture shaped the distribution of illegal alcohol. The corridor was the car capital of North America, with the continent’s highest per capita car ownership rates. This widespread car ownership meant large numbers of individuals and gangs used their private automobiles to move the contraband. Tens of thousands of cars on the road made it difficult to effectively enforce the prohibition measures, particularly where police forces were chronically underfunded. The region’s dry laws predated the nationwide prohibition of the Volstead Era (1920–1933). By mid-1919, the entire Toledo-Detroit-Windsor Corridor was dry as provincial and state laws came into effect. Windsor was first, with Prohibition enacted in 1916 and extended in 1918. Detroit was next in May 1918 (becoming one of the country’s largest dry cities), and Ohio followed a year later in May 1919. The staggered implementation of prohibition laws in the region created predictable movements of goods and people: when Detroit turned dry in 1918, thirsty consumers and rumrunners simply drove to northwest Ohio, which was still wet. [End Page 89] Police forces were underfunded in the Toledo-Detroit-Windsor region. In the initial months of dry enforcement, the Michigan constabulary had only one patrol car, one supply truck, and thirty horses. Enterprising officers used the confiscated rumrunners’ cars for patrols until forbidden to do so by the state attorney general. The police eventually responded to the actions and methods of the criminals. The increased number of shootings and carjackings by rumrunners led the Michigan constabulary to employ an armored car, known as “Little Bertha,” that had armor plating and long-range guns. Additionally, Michigan’s 1919 Lewis Act permitted the constabulary to confiscate vehicles involved in rumrunning and, significantly, made prohibition violations felonies instead of misdemeanors—giving law enforcement greater legal cover in using their firearms in policing incidents. Adam Pole University of Windsor Copyright © 2023 Historical Society of Michigan

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