This stretch, lined with tavern after tavern, was known as “Whiskey Row.” One famously boozy area was the strip of Ashland Avenue between Pershing Road and 47th Street, on the western edge of the Union Stockyards. Many new bars at this time catered to Chicago’s working class. That number continued to increase throughout much of the ’30s and ’40s.Įnthusiasm for legal drinking after Prohibition helped drive this second boom in taverns, as did the growth of Chicago’s population and industrial sector throughout the 1940s. More than 5,000 taverns had set up shop in Chicago by the end of 1933. Enthusiasm for legal drinking after Prohibition helped usher in a second boom in taverns. A group of Chicagoans celebrates the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. “There are stories of people going to breweries and hanging outside and shaking the fences,” Garibay says. When Prohibition was repealed in 1933, Chicagoans wasted no time opening up taverns and going out to drink. 1933–1955: Bars boom again after Prohibition But Chicago’s bar scene would come roaring back to life soon enough. “We raised the saloon as a pet and then gave it the chloroform,” wrote Chicago journalist George Ade. In January 1920, Prohibition went into effect, banning the production, transport and sale of alcohol nationwide. It was also relatively easy to open a new tavern: Liquor licenses were widely available, and a saloon-keeper needed to invest very little money because breweries would usually provide saloon-keepers with the storefront, alcohol, glassware, and furniture they needed.īut as these saloons were flourishing, the temperance movement, a social movement that advocated against the consumption of alcohol, was picking up momentum. “At the end of the day, you want to be able to go to a bar where people speak like you, look like you, understand you,” Garibay says. At its peak in 1905, the city counted 8,097 saloons, or one saloon for every 239 residents. Men stand in front of a Chicago bar circa 1895. Furthermore, many saloons catered to the predominant ethnic group in their neighborhood, making them critical spaces for new immigrants who were coming to Chicago around this time, and who often didn’t speak English. They were major social hubs, where people could make friends or find a job, and bartenders would cash paychecks and receive mail for their regular customers. But according to Liz Garibay, a historian who studies the role of alcohol in Chicago history, these saloons weren’t just watering holes.
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