Rum Runners and Moonshiners of Old Florida

Florida’s Prohibition Governor

An aide once exclaimed to members of the press, "Florida Crackers have only three friends in this world: God Almighty, Sears Roebuck and Sidney Johnston Catts."

   Born on an Alabama plantation in 1863, Sidney Johnston Catts was named after a fallen Confederate general. In 1886, he became awakened by the spiritual and profitable side of the southern Baptist church. As a Born-again pastor, and a controversial figure in history, Catts increased his notoriety by taking advantage of the terrifying spike in racial violence during that decade. Once when a black man threatened him with a knife, Catts killed him with a shotgun blast. This act of violence did little to harm Catts’s political clout among white voters
   When Catts moved to the panhandle, the region was becoming consumed with prohibition, a movement deftly led by the Anti-Saloon League and Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Protestant preachers, and First lady Jennings.  Across Florida and the South, county by county, the drys were crushing the wets at the ballot box. It was an atmosphere that seemed tailor made for a Sidney Catts, and it didn’t take long for this outlandish man to make a stab in politics.
 
A political unknown (His Campaign ad featured on the right) in Florida, he campaigned for the office of governor by walking miles and miles covering Florida with a Bible in one hand and carrying a loaded revolver in the other. He often flamboyantly stood on a stump preaching a political sermon to his supporters while wiping sweat from his ruddy red face with a large handkerchief or cooling himself with a palmetto fan. It is said that he based his political truths on "Religion, Race, and Rum." That is he believed that winning elections in the south was all about traditional religious values, white’s fears about African Americans, and public appearance of being against liquor. As his personal and professional record would later reveal he was not a true believer and only used the movement as an opportunity for advancement.





 Legend has it that what sparked Catts interest in the Governorship was his discovery that once elected, the governor can live in the Executive mansion rent free. His campaign was historic for its use of both an automobile and a loudspeaker which he would use to travel extensively to rural areas. It was in this race that a form of campaigning now referred to as “Barn storming” was born. Catts’ major opponent in the Democratic Primary was state comptroller William Knotts. Catts won the Democratic ticket by a close margin, but Knotts challenged the win in court. Knowing that the courts would back Knotts against him, Catts took to the roads in his Model T in an attempt to turn the race into a populist revolt against the corrupt establishment of state government. The state supreme court ordered a recount and Catts lost by just a few votes.

Infuriated, Catts went to the Florida Prohibition Party leadership and requested their endorsement, which was given. Catts proceeded to trounce the regular Democratic candidate at the general election. On Election Day in 1916, Sidney Catts became the 22nd Governor of Florida with 43% of the vote and the remaining candidates dividing the rest. He was one of only two candidates from the Prohibition Party to ever obtain such a high position in government; the other was Charles Hiram Randall of California, who served in Congress 1915 to 1921. Despite this feat Catts was always a true Democrat


Sidney Catt’s Inauguration was the first ever recorded on film and Catts, a former Pastor, made sure that it was an eventful ceremony. His Inaugural address would layout an agenda that was both anti-Catholic and prejudice, claiming that Pope Benedict XV was secretly trying to take over Florida. The new Governor would later not attend his own Inauguration over his own fear that the punch would be spiked.   He was fine winning as a Prohibitionist candidate. Yet, the second he won, he returned to the Democrats. Despite being a stated defender of sobriety, he shocked many of his most diehard followers by supporting legalized gambling and, his administration was attacked with charges of counterfeiting. In fact during his single four year term, he did nearly nothing for the prohibitionist cause. When it looked like statewide prohibition was going to be a reality, only then did he put his full support behind it.  Once out of the Governor's mansion, Catts for a time established a short-lived business of making patent medicines, such as Catts' Hog Tonic, which was full of booze.
After many long years of battling each other it was the temperance forces that had won the day and the writing was clearly on the wall. Still the brewer and distillers were big business. They spent plenty on money to preserve their operations. Anheuser Busch helped bankroll the United Brewers Association to counter lobby legislators who had been brew beat by the anti-saloon league.  While their efforts may have proved far too little and much too late. The momentum was with a national repeal. Luckily for many brewery owners, they had an ace up their sleeve - smuggling.

Al Capone In the Panhandle

Al Capone and Destin

   During the midst of prohibition, a group of local business leaders in Tallahassee discovered that the notorious mobster Al Capone  was passing through town. Despite his place on the FBI’s “most wanted” list, a small crowd that included a few police officers enthusiastically welcomed the gangster into the capital city. His ability to be one step ahead of the law made him a folk hero to the common man. With the manner of a lofty celebrity, Al Capone simply rolled down the window of his fast-moving black limousine and waved to the crowd now cheering wildly. 
   Although was most known for his Chicago connection and Miami vacations, Al Capone was no stranger to the Florida Panhandle. It was in the sunshine state that Capone liked to rest. The Sunshine State was his getaway from cold winters and various assassination attempts, but it was also an important part of his vast criminal empire.

The coast of North Florida was where his bootleggers would make landfall, on their long dangerous journey smuggling in spirits from the Caribbean islands.
  “One of Al’s favorite recreation spots was Grayton Beach,” claimed Frank Pericola Editor of the Panama City News Herald. Likewise, the Valpariso Inn just past Fort Walton was another local joint Scarface enjoyed visiting. But, he was always well behaved, the last thing the famous man wanted was attention of any kind.
   Although Capone purchased a massive 14-room Miami Beach retreat under his wife’s name for $40,000 in 1928, he was always moving around the state. He made countless road trips along both coastlines while his mansion was undergoing $100,000 worth of renovations, including the additions of a swimming pool, boathouse and dock. According to local historian Tony Mennillo, one of Capone’s favorite travel destinations was the Emerald Coast given that it was likewise an ideal spot for bootlegging.
“It was desolate and hard to get to, it was known for its moonshine,” said Mennillo.
   During the 1920s, Destin was something of a retreat haven for bootleggers, including Capone. Just a few years ago, the Tampa Tribune had famously proclaimed the location Florida’s “Little Vegas” for its connections to illegal gambling. Locals say Capone would run liquor through the Choctawhatchee bay. That there was a special train located in nearby Defuniak that travelled along a straight shot to Chicago, coupled with the area’s speculated waterways, seemed to confirm forever a local theory that Capone hid a smuggling operation in plain sight.

   According to the book, “Salty Memories Along the Coastal Highway” written by Tony Mennillo, many locals in Defuniak proclaim with absolute certainty that Al Capone, the legendary mobster, was there as a frequent vacationer. The stories go that a man nicknamed “Big Al” who possessed many of the same mannerisms as Al Capone was believed to be him on holiday throughout the 1920s and early 30s. Big Al had his own black limousine, not unlike the one described speeding on the streets of Tallahassee that was confirmed to belong to Capone. He had his own driver and could be found playing marathon rounds of golf on newly trimmed Bermuda grass.
   Sometimes he would approach various locals to be his golf caddies for the day. The young men always accepted the offer because he was known to be a great tipper. After he got to know them a bit he would identify himself as Al Capone. After golfing, Big Al would always take the young caddies back to his clubhouse for a beer. If the bartender declined to give the teenage caddies a beer, the rage of Capone would be felt.
He would yell, “They’re with me and I said get ’em a beer.”

Governor Carlton and Al Capone 

   In hindsight, the state is incredibly fortunate that a man like Doyle E. Carlton  was governor during some of its most difficult periods. Between 1929 and 1933, Carlton faced four major natural disasters, the final collapse of Florida’s land boom, an infestation of the Mediterranean fruit fly which crippled the state’s citrus business, and the national great depression.

   Fearless is the best word to describe the state’s 25th governor. The moral governor whose critics labeled self-righteous once vetoed a pro gambling bill despite being offered $100,000 from the state’s organized crime to sign it into law.  Governor Carlton made a powerful enemy in Florida resident and notorious mafia boss Al Capone. Carlton’s public demand that Capone sale his Miami Beach home and leave the state, caused the mobster to threaten the Governor’s life. The threat was apparently so credible that President Herbert Hoover sent special FBI agents down to the governor's mansion to beef up security.

   According to some sources, this feud stems from the actions of the Governor following Capone’s return to the state after a prolong vacation in 1930. Capone was intending to return to his Palm Island home, and it didn’t take long for Doyle E. Carlton, to issue a statement banishing Capone from returning to Florida on March 19th, 1930. Governor Carlton instructed law enforcement to detain Capone on site and escort him to the state border with instructions not to return. Once you explore the track record of many panhandle sheriffs, it’s not too difficult to understand why the Governor’s wishes weren’t carried out. In fact the behavior of many law enforcement agents towards Capone, almost revering him as a celebrity, meant that he was untouchable.
 Capone was stopped in Fort Walton for speeding according to one retired police officer.  Though as it turns out no ticket was ever recorded. It’s been speculated that the on-duty officer may have either kept it as a souvenir or made it go away. It has only been recently that archivists at the Northwest Florida Heritage Museum have uncovered photos of Capone vacationing in Panama City, which as Diane Plack is quick to proudly point out is the first real concrete proof that Capone was ever here besides the oral histories of those that interacted with him.
There he is in black and white, captured as proof.
While Capone’s legacy is one of Murder and organized crime, his numerous visits to the Florida Panhandle were nothing short of electric to those who saw him. It was here in the Florida Panhandle that he could disappear from the stresses of smuggling bootlegged Whiskey. He would use many aliases during his long travels within the sunshine state, the most prevalent being “A. Brown.” The Mobster kingpin had several ties to the sunshine state, even owning vast property in Deerfield beach. But he also had business connections in Valparaiso and Florosa Florida. Rumor has it that he would run liquor brought in from Cuba across the Choctawhatchee Bay.

For some, the jury is still out as to whether Capone spent much if anytime in the panhandle, though others firmly believe this was his home away from home. What has never been disputed was his influence on smuggling throughout the state, and while some may challenge what his Florida vacation spots were, everyone agrees that members of his organization were located across the panhandle. One story that Diane Plank tells seems to confirm that the mobster’s presence in the panhandle was common knowledge. As the story goes, a family friend when she was a young girl was caught suddenly in a rough patch of weather as she was boating in her tiny schooner along the shore. She and the other members of her party ventured into a darkened and sculpted portion of the coast and their boat was overturned suddenly. They were crowded by several tall men wearing double breasted suits who were extremely curious but equally anxious to see them leave.

Rum runners and Moonshiners of old florida now available for purchase
https://www.amazon.com/Rum-Runners-Moonshiners-Old-Florida/dp/1729616313

Images from the New BOOK Rum Runners AND Moonshiners of Old Florida

Now available for purchase



https://www.amazon.com/Rum-Runners-Moonshiners-Old-Florida/dp/1729616313

    Florida is my Home. I was born in Hollywood, Florida, just a few miles away from the old hangouts of Capone, and where the mob moved its base of operations following the glory days of Prohibition. My father's family moved there in the 1970s after nearly a century in Brooklyn. If you google my last name you'll discover no winners of high office, no Nobel prizes for medicine, or famous inventors.  What you'll find is a bunch of swarthy people with olive skin from Sicily that helped create the Mafia and a sweet bread cake of the same name from Lucca, Italy.  Legend says it was created by one of my ancestors. Clearly, he was a modest person with a self-deprecating sense of humor because it’s a giant ring-shaped fruit cake.   When I was born my Mother’s father, Walt Young, was a member of the Florida House of Representatives for Pembroke Pines, and mom being an unabashed "Daddy's Girl" dragged me over the next ten years on a series of long car drives from Hollywood to Tallahassee where he would finally retired. This long state would wiz past me and my road dog mother would take me through the back-roads of 27 to save money on tolls. There I would see the real Florida of the 1940s and 1950s, the tourism traps that seemed to die out once Disney arrived.  It was on these car rides with Mom and sometimes with my Grandpa that I learned about Florida’s culture, and its character.

But it was settling down in the Florida Panhandle that opened my eyes to a completely different slice of Florida culture. Of course, I was living in Tallahassee, a liberal cultural citadel within the Panhandle. The real Panhandle or Old Florida as its sometime called is an intriguing mix-up of rural living and beach resorts, small-town living alongside precious outlets of nature, beach and forest. The vast and compelling settings of Florida's historic past that are happily not lost in its busy present and increasing modernization.

   I married a southern belle with many Florida Cracker virtues, who along with my in-laws quickly informed me that I was not a true Southerner, but a Yankee from Miami.  Over the past five years I have studied the history of Florida's forgotten frontier and its rural past. Throughout this journey many colorful figures have come into focus. This south Florida Yankee has become intrigued with the rebellious spirit of the Florida moonshiner and cracker rum-runner. The powerful, charming, forces of nature that made their illegal products in the region’s swamps so that the rural laborer and well-dressed big city flapper alike could happily consume it. The men that made so many moonlight journeys towards their river shakes to make the shine or race it across dense forests in stolen cars from quickly unloaded schooners.  The beach hoppers and well healed tourists who came here looking for rum and spirits, and were never disappointed. Each played their small part in one of the most compelling human dramas in the sunshine state’s outlandish history. 

One of the greatest parts about gathering some of the interviews and source material for this book was the good-natured enthusiasm from the people I encountered. It was truly marvelous the way each interview began to take on a similar pattern. I would usually start off with a local group, association, or in many cases a historical society. I would make a dry call to the main location and would usually be greeted by a very friendly volunteer, who upon hearing the subject of the book would laugh loudly. The median age on the other end of the phone calls was usually about 72. So clearly, I was speaking to someone who had first-hand knowledge. 

   I would, ask them if they had any knowledge or personal experiences that could be used in the book, and the other end of the phone would then stop laughing and like clockwork grow silent. If it was a man on the other end, a moment of brief reflection was all they needed, and then they were off to the races. Almost at once they would start up the narrative of their lives. Talking about their childhood, the community they grew up in, and the adults around them who had remote connections to bootlegging or moonshiners.  

   If it was a woman on the other end, they tended to need another round of probing. Regardless of county, city, gender, or race they were all natives to the panhandle or central regions of the state. Little by little, they enjoyed talking to me about the past and the wild activities of their neighbors. But, of course there was no mention about the possible involvement of their own families. They all had one final gatekeeper to prevent me, a stranger, from getting to the fruit.  The men wanted you to know that this was a very religious part of the country.

Rum Runners and Moonshiners Now Available for Purchase

Foreword by Kartik Krishnaiyer


   It’s difficult for modern Floridians to conceive what prohibition was like, even with dry counties in the parts of the state persisting into this millennium.  It's difficult also for many in our state to really grasp how important this era was, and how much this bustling, modern mega-state was defined by the shadows of the 1920's.

   Splits between wets and dries characterized political and societal life throughout the nation. Florida was no different but as a southern, largely religious state people’s entire life and ideology were defined by if they were wets or dries.   At the beginning of the era the state’s population was skewed toward the northern part of the peninsula, which was known as the Panhandle, and where dries dominated. But by the end of the prohibition era, the state was much more balanced with huge growth in the south where wets were more prevalent. This created a unique tug of war throughout the state. Florida’s willingness to allow local municipalities to implement prohibition long before the Volstead Act passed made it a contentious issue that divided Floridians in a state that was rapidly changing. For three decades people’s entire life and ideology were defined by if they were wets or dries.

   Urbanization and immigration were leading triggers on the move for prohibition throughout the country. A fear of outsiders and a loss of simple agrarian life that was being corrupted by the bottle and vices that come with alcohol were leading justifications for dry movements that sprung up throughout the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

   Carry Nation the country’s leading prohibitionist activist visited Florida in 1908 touring the state. Nation’s impact was profound - politicians joined her call for prohibition as did many housewives and non-political activist types. Nation’s visit helped many local municipalities push through ordinances making towns, cities and counties “dry” before the Volstead Act imposed prohibition nationally.  The impact of Nation in many small towns was pronounced. Making areas “dry” became the sole political issue in many places as early as the 1908 election.

   In one-party Florida, as with the rest of the south, politics would fall upon tribal or single-issue lines. From the late 1910’s until the last 1920’s the most important issues in the south were related to prohibition and race. Often being soft on prohibition implied a certain liberalism on race and immigration in the eyes of those who were prohibitionists. But ethnic diversity was coming to Florida and the prohibition era captivated this.

   In 1916, as prohibition was becoming the dominant domestic issue particularly in rural areas Sidney Catts was elected Governor of Florida after being denied the Democratic nomination in a recount. Catts secured the nomination of the Prohibition Party and was elected. Catts talked extensively about political & bureaucratic reform and married that rhetoric with anti-Catholicism and overt racism. Catts electoral success showed the ability of someone associated with being “dry” to buck the established Bourbon Democratic Party establishment and get elected. Catts showed how popular prohibition was among rural conservatives. Catts though a registered Democrat was the only person running on a line other than the Democratic one to win the Governorship between Reconstruction and the 1960s.

   Catts’ victory led the legislature to impose a form of prohibition statewide BEFORE the Volstead Act was passed. While Florida’s governing northern rural counties remained dry and conservative in this period for the most part other parts of the state, far-flung from the centers of power in the 1910’s and 1920’s took a different approach.
 


   Developments would soon after the imposition of state laws and the Volstead Act demonstrate how absurd a notion prohibition was in general for a state as large and diverse as Florida was becoming.  With ethnic Italians and Cubans moving into the peninsular portion state, and Catholics in general nationally "wetter" than other groups, the landscape was changing forever in the Sunshine State. These fault lines which were becoming apparently politically in the late 1910’s would be exposed once and for all in the 1920’s. In an era before interstate highways and the Florida Turnpike, before jet airplanes, before the internet and television, communications were delayed and often limited between the northern rural areas which governed Florida and the south where prohibition was disdained.

   Consistently tension in Florida politics and society in the early and mid-1900’s revolved between the rural north with most of its residents tracing their southern lineage to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi or South Carolina with the rest of the state who was filling up with people from the north and even abroad was only beginning to percolate when prohibition was implemented.  The Florida land boom coincided with prohibition and made the implementation of dry laws unrealistic beyond the small towns and rural conservative counties of the Panhandle and Big Bend.

   A vast, sprawling peninsula lay below the areas where prohibition was popular and it became almost impossible for law enforcement officers to force the laws on those areas. Much like the Seminole’s and other native Americans who had fled south into the vast hinterland of the state to remain “unconquered,” bootleggers drifted to Florida, particularly the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area.  Shootouts were common and law enforcement officials had very hard time tracking bootleggers. Meanwhile gambling became commonplace and levels of public corruption among elected officials and bureaucrats reached levels never seen in the state’s history. Law enforcement itself wasn’t immune and prostitution became more prevalent. It was an era that shaped much of the identity of South Florida and other parts of the state where prohibition was not welcomed by large portions of the population and businesses.
Just a few years earlier game wardens had filled up the region to try and prevent the illegal plume hunting - shootouts and general lawlessness followed until the trade in bird feathers dried up. But even that era seemed tame by comparison to what would happen on the Miami River and on the beaches of Miami and Fort Lauderdale in the 1920’s and early 1930’s.

   Bootlegging was common as was the ability of pharmacists and others to “prescribe” medicine with high alcohol content. In the Tampa Bay area, rum-running and other forms of bootlegging were also common and with the wide areas of undeveloped wilderness surrounding Tampa, Miami and Fort Lauderdale in the 1920’s it was easy to set-up shop outside of town or near the water and do business wherever was needed. For law enforcement cracking down on such a trade proved futile even if the politicians and other interests behind prohibition couldn’t understand the circumstances which led the Florida peninsula to be among the wettest places in the country during the 1920’s.

   In Robert Buccellato’s other works about the state we’ve seen the evolution of Florida from small town oriented and reactionary to urban mega state. In Finding Dan McCarty, Buccellato brilliantly articulates an era of Florida politics and growth where the counties of South Florida who were driving the state’s economic growth were in a tussle to wrestle political control away from the largely rural northern part of the state. This work can be considered a precursor to that book, a prequel if you like.

   The elements for a modern Florida and the explosive growth in relevance of southern Florida were intertwined with prohibition. While the common themes of land speculation, draining of the Everglades and an automobile and plane infused tourist-boom are given credit for the shift in the state, the prohibition era played an important role.

   Buccellato’s knowledge of Florida History is among the sharpest around. This period of Florida’s evolution hasn’t been appreciated enough as it played a critical role in crafting a state that was attractive for outsiders and ready to boom after World War II. This era helped make southeast Florida a more cosmopolitan melting pot than had been seen in the state’s history with migrants from the Northeast and Midwest as well as foreign immigrants. The Tampa area also grew similarly.

   What came out of the prohibition era was a more diverse state and one whose population was changing. While it took the leadership of the state decades to understand the changes and adjust accordingly, everyday life in Florida outside the small rural towns of northern Florida was never the same. While prohibition was undoubtedly a mistake spurned by an era of anxiety towards urbanization and immigration, it shaped Florida for decades to come.

Now available for purchase

https://www.amazon.com/Rum-Runners-Moonshiners-Old-Florida/dp/1729616313