"The 18th Amendment banned the production, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages in the United States from 1919 and it was repealed in 1933. Como was a

hotbed of anti-liquor activists and politicians in the early twentieth century.

But not everyone in the neighborhood was a Prohibitionist. Not even some of the cops who lived here.

Famously, many Minnesotans smuggled liquor in from Canada or made their own booze in basements and bathtubs. Not so famously, a Minneapolis Police lieutenant who had a home at 1033 16th Ave. SE made whiskey in his basement during Prohibition.

According to a more recent owner of that home, tradition has it that the Lieutenant dug a tunnel from his basement out to the garage in back, where he could load and transport his booze without the neighbors seeing that activity. The tunnel and the still were no longer necessary after Repeal, and the tunnel has long since been closed off."

Como People of the Past article

By Connie Sullivan