Black-and-white 1920s scene of Prohibition agents prying open a cellar door during a raid on an illegal Pittsburgh speakeasy, with barrels of liquor and onlookers visible.

Pittsburgh’s Role in Prohibition: Moonshine, Speakeasies, and Bootleggers

Events & Turning Points, Neighborhoods & Communities, People & Personalities

On a warm summer evening in 1919, throngs of Pittsburghers packed into saloons for what was billed as the “last call” before the dry law took effect. Strangely, the wild debauch many expected never materialized. “Everybody came to see everybody else get drunk,” the Pittsburgh Post observed the next day, “and nobody got drunk”. Little…