100 years ago: Revisiting a Roaring ’20s-, Prohibition-style New Year’s Eve in Erie – GoErie.com

Valerie Myers|Erie Times-News

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"It doesn't require liquor, after all, to assure the success of a New Year's celebration, as thousands of Erieites proved Friday night."

The pronouncement by the Erie Dispatch Herald on Jan. 1, 1921, after the first New Year's Eve ofProhibitionseemed half-hearted.

But for Erieites in that new year, the continuing prohibition against alcohol was one of just a few clouds on the horizon.

The city was in the midst of abuilding boom.

Women had voted for the first timein the November presidential election,helping to elect Warren Harding.

Army aviators had flown 9,000 miles from New York to Nome, Alaska, in 111 hours over three months and one week, blazingthe way for morepostal air service routes.

And the first World War and the even more lethal influenza pandemic were memories.

For construction workers, postal customers and the city's first female election clerks and inspectors, at least,prospects for the new year were bright.

On New Year's Eve 1920 and New Year's Day 1921, Erie residents celebrated, kicking up their heels in "8,000 square feet of dancing space" at Harden's Dancing Academy at 114 East 10th St., according to the Erie Daily Times.

They also took in midnight matinees, including"Peaceful Valley" at the originalStrand theater at Ninth and State streets, and playedcheckers, card games and dominoes at the Erie Board of Commerce rooms in the Penn Buildingat Eighth and State streets.

Some splurged on "oyster on half shell mignonette, supreme of salmon trout leopold, plum pudding with English sauce" and more for $1.75 at the Reed House hotel on Perry Square.

And almost everywhere, "eagle eyed enforcers of the laws," according to the Dispatch, looked for demon rum, and mostly found "a rushing business in coca cola and grape juice highballs."

All in all, "by the statements of police and hotel proprietors and the revelers themselves, it was the most dry and good humored New Year's Eve that Erie has known since its village days."

Others greeted the new year at church, many at marathon services.Pastors of Erie's six Methodist churches exchanged pulpits, "which permitted each of the six ministers to give a fifteen or twenty minute address at the church of each of his colleagues" in services that began at 9 p.m. and continued untilone minute past midnight.

"Interspersed between the speeches were music, social features and devotional services," the Dispatchreported.

Services at Erie's Scandinavian churches weren't so long and maybe weren'tso social, by the tone of their advertisementin the Erie Daily Times:

"Suppose that this should be your last New Year season, how would you spend it? We suggest attendance at a good church service," including the "union services" of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Church and Swedish Baptist Church, at the Mission Church at East 10th and German streets.

At the city's half-dozen theaters, plots were heading toward a denouementwhen churches let out just after midnight:

"At most downtown movie houses, the operator was on the fourth reel of the feature film when 1921 rolled in," said the Dispatch, "and at Park Opera House, Mutt and Jeff had not quite gotten through their experiences at the race track."

The newspaper described what New Year's Eve looked like downtown:

"There was little action during the early hours of the evening. Streets were traveled by no more than ordinary traffic. But after 8:30 pedestrians increased in number. An hour later most of them were in church or in restaurants or in theaters, and State Street was lonesome again.

"At midnight, it livened up, and taxi cabs, private machines and extra streetcars appeared in increased numbers to serve the merry makers. When during the next hour the theater crowds streamed out," traffic increased again for a time and "restaurant proprietors rubbed their hands in satisfaction.

"And after that the lights went out and the people went home and no one bothered about the New Year anymore until long after dawn."

Ongoing construction and improving public health were good reasons for New Year's cheer.

Building permits issued in 1920 were for projects valued at $3.7 million, or the equivalent of $48.1 million today, for the construction of properties that would become city landmarks: Lovell Manufacturing Company, built for $375,000; the original East High School, $228,760; the Lawrence Hotel, $226,000; and the Boston Store, $225,000.

Other construction ongoing in 1921 would include the completion of the Pennsylvania National Guard Armory at East Sixth and Parade streets.The building's cornerstone had been laid in a public ceremony on Dec. 18, 1920.

City Bureau of Highways and Engineering chief Theodore Eichhorn, in his annual report, also looked forward to completion of the Mill Creek Tube, construction of the new and long-awaited Union depot, and lower State Street paving.

As the construction projects continued and construction jobs increased, public health improved.

The 1918-19 Spanish influenza pandemic was over, but scarlet fever and diphtheria had followed. By New Year's 1921, the number of cases was dropping.

"Contagious diseases showed a remarkable decline when the health office opened this morning compared with the number of diseases in the city last week," the Times reported Jan. 3, 1921. "Last week there were 66 cases of diphtheria under quarantine, while this morning there were only 36. ... At the same time there were 26 cases of scarlet fever under quarantine last week, while this morning there were only 19."

It was reason for optimism, but there also was controversy ahead.

If Erieites were mainly "dry and good humored"on New Year's Eve 1920, they weren't well pleased with Prohibition, which had begun that year.

A headline in the Erie Daily Times on New Year's Eve groused, Happy New Year,says dry boss. How can it be happy?

"Dry boss" John Kramer pledged to step up enforcement of federal liquor laws in the new year.

"It's going to be a long, lean year for the booze hounds," Kramer said.

It also would be an uphill fight.

While thousands of Erieites were dry that New Year's Eve, as the Dispatch reported, the paper conceded that alcohol was still available "to add to the festivity of such an occasion, as conclusively demonstrated by at least a few hundred of other Erieites."

Some even operated thriving bootlegging businesses until Prohibition's repeal in 1933.

And when it came to law and order in the city, there were more issues.Erie residents and Erienewspapers were clamoring for aninvestigation and shakeup of the city police department.

"Opinion of those familiar with police affairs indicates conditions in the department are rotten ... Ugly stories regarding neglect of duty, loafing, protection of crime and grafting are being told ... A disinterested tribunal must sit in judgement and go to the bottom of this nasty mess," according to a whopping headline in the Erie Daily Times on Dec. 1, 1920.

And after the headline: "Clean house in the police department.

"If half of the rumors whichare heard on the street are true, the police department is in such a sorry mess of disorganization, double-crossing, incompetency, inattention to duty, loafing and grafting" that an investigation isrequired for taxpayers to have confidence in the department.

An investigation, the paper said, also would determine who would run the department, Chief Bill Detzel or Mayor Miles Kitts. The paper cast its vote in describing the mayor as "playingpolitics 365 days a year."

The Dispatch may have had a different view. The paper on Jan. 2, 1921, reported on a "shoot to kill" order issued by Detzel, to be obeyed by his officers "if a crook attempts to get away from them." Some Erie City Council members, the newspaper reported, felt that "crime epidemic" or not, firing shots should be a last resort.

The police department made changes, Detzel continued as chiefand Kitts served out his term, not stepping down until 1924.

Even with those issues, optimism tipped the scales as 1921 began and as a 1920 favorite continued. The serialized "When a Girl Marries," chapter 685, resumed in the Erie Daily Times on Jan. 3.

Contact Valerie Myers at vmyers@timesnews.com.

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100 years ago: Revisiting a Roaring '20s-, Prohibition-style New Year's Eve in Erie - GoErie.com