Prohibition Kansas City was Awesome
Exploring one of the USA's most important cities of the 1920s.
The Prohibition of alcohol in the United States was, of course, a failed experiment that took place from 1920 to 1933; whether you’ve looked into it or not, you probably know at least a little bit about the era. From Al Capone to Appalachian moonshine running, from flappers to the Harlem Renaissance, you’ve seen movies and TV shows about it at the very least. But the truth is that what is normally explored in pop history only scratches the surface of what was going on in the USA in what was known as the ‘Roaring Twenties’. For examples there, we can look to the Midwest.
Chicago, of course, was Capone’s turf, but the effects that Detroit had on the US nation in the 20s were far more consequential. That city’s metropolitan area was the center of Canadian booze smuggling — Windsor, Ontario, is part of the urban area, and booze came from that city into Detroit, where it was distributed nationwide. How much booze? 75% of what flowed around in the USA during Prohibition passed through the region. In addition, Ohio played an outsized role in the Prohibition era. The movement that would result in the Prohibition law began in a city named Oberlin, and Cleveland was a major organized crime city; in addition, the Cincinnati metropolitan area, especially Newport on the Kentucky side of the river, was a center for the production of alcohol as well as a major concentration for vice (in fact, this would lead to Newport, KY becoming one of the USA’s first gambling towns — but that’s another story).
However, one of the most interesting cities in the USA during this era was Kansas City, for two reasons: first, it had one of the wildest scenes in the country in the 1920s, bar none; second, the city would lose its status as one of the USA’s greatest party towns soon after Prohibition ended, and is now not known for much besides being very close to the center of the map of the USA. Basically it roared in a big way in the 20s, and has more or less lost its voice since. Kansas City is still cool, don’t get us wrong — it’s just far from as notable as it was during Prohibition, when it was at the cutting edge of US culture.
KCMO (betraying its name, Kansas city straddles the border of Kansas and Missouri, but is mostly in Missouri, or MO) was a major hub for train travel in the early 20th Century, owing largely to its geography; St. Louis, a city not very far to Kansas City’s east, was a bigger hub, but KCMO handled a large proportion of cross-continental transit. All those passengers rolling through from various corners of the USA, and spending time and money in KCMO it on their layovers, made Kansas City fairly cosmopolitan culturally. This aspect of the city took a big hit when people switched to flying and stopped taking trains, but it was potent while it lasted.
During the 1920s, alcohol was ubiquitous in KCMO, and illegal bars blanketed the city. Known as speakeasies, these establishments went from small and basic to massive huge casinos. You had to give a password at the door, to keep Prohibition agents out, which is where the name comes from. Although it was, of course, the law to not drink, Kansas City was so wet that, realistically, enforcing that would be impossible (‘dry’ cities obeyed the Prohibition laws, while places that were ‘wet’ more or less ignored them).
In KCMO, most law enforcement officers were on the take, paid to not bust speakeasies; this was common nationwide. In some cities, police stations were forced to cut the outgoing phone lines at police stations, because otherwise officers would tip off their friends at the speakeasies to planned raids (raids that were largely ceremonial in any case). The only usually incorruptible law enforcement in wet cities were the federal Prohibition agents, tasked with enforcing Prohibition law, but in the wettest US cities, no one would share information with these agents; this would cripple their investigations. In addition, wet politicians would cut funding for Prohibition enforcement at the local level as much as they could.
As far as the wettest cities, Detroit (as mentioned) was the capital of smuggled booze coming in from Canada; Chicago had Al Capone and other gangsters keeping that city inebriated; New York City and New Orleans are sort of no brainers, as they have always been party cities; and, ironically, Washington DC was one as well. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was on the list due to its position as a midpoint between the East Coast cities and the Midwest; it became a capital of 20s culture because of traffic passing through it. And so it was with KCMO.
As previously mentioned, Kansas City was an early travel hub in the United States. Because of how train routes were laid out, if you were going from the East Coast or Midwest to Los Angeles, you were going to pass through KCMO. And, because it had a reputation for its nightlife, you might end up staying a few days on your way through. And so there was a very urban population passing through, and this crowd made KCMO fairly cutting edge culturally — celebrities would stop there between LA and New York.
In addition, Jazz bands would swing by Kansas City between New Orleans and Chicago, helping make the city one of the capitals of 1920s Jazz. However, it was more than a city imitating other cities in this regard; Kansas City had its own style and swagger. KCMO is more or less where bebop developed, and that was a giant evolution in Jazz; it was also known for the distinctive way jazz was played in its clubs, which could see musicians playing the same song all night. Solos could go on for over half an hour, and the band would switch musicians in and out to keep the show going. Jazz musicians would come to KCMO to prove themselves, because of the difficulty of the gigs — many Kansas City clubs were open until sunrise, and playing that long wasn’t for everybody. In addition to all this, Kansas City’s role as a transportation crossroads guaranteed a steady stream of musicians rolling through that would keep the scene in the loop as far as the latest trends.
However, 1920s KCMO wasn’t fun for everyone. Prohibition was a while after emancipation, but it was still a really racist time; everything was segregated, and black people were treated horribly across the board — for example, white people wearing blackface was a very popular form of entertainment. Discrimination against some European immigrants, like the Italians and the Irish, was also bad, and anti-Semitism was pretty much a given during that era. Compared to other parts of the US, it was pretty progressive, but that meant things were still pretty horrible along those lines.
However, Kansas City had an even darker side. It was a wild place –gambling, drinking, prostitution, and violence were common — but the city was far from out of control — in fact, the opposite was true, as one KCMO politician, Tom Pendergast, essentially ran the city; it was nicknamed ‘Tom’s Town’. This situation came about after Pendergast’s brother, Jim Pendergast, built what’s known as a political machine; Tom more or less inherited it.
Political machines were common in the early 20th century United States; essentially these systems utilized the lack of a welfare state to keep political power. If you were poor in Kansas City, you didn’t have much in the way of a safety net — but you did have something powerful: a vote. Political machines were essentially politicians buying votes and giving favors in return; due to a lack of other options, this was how many immigrant communities survived, most notably Irish Americans. Political bosses would give voters government jobs, such as hiring them as police officers — and, because they got their jobs from the machine, cops would do what the machine wanted. And it was like that at many levels of government in Kansas City.
However, it didn’t stop there — the Italian mafia was heavily involved in the Pendergast machine. They fit in pretty well: Pendergast’s Party had its own gang of enforcers, and there were street fights over voting. But under mobster John Lazia, the Italian mafia and Pendergast’s machine fused. The city’s mob was one of the most powerful in the US — at a national Mob meeting in 1929, KCMO was one of only five cities represented (NYC, Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit were the others). As far as its importance now, the Kansas City mafia was referenced in the Godfather, the Sopranos, and the TV series Ozark. Because of this entanglement, it’s no surprise that KCMO became more or less a free-for-all for criminals in the 20s; the mob was, essentially, the government.
However, most people that spent time in KCMO wouldn’t come into contact with that world (although the city’s danger was likely part of its draw). The bottom line is that Prohibition in Kansas City is a pretty interesting story, because its role in the period was huge; however, wandering the city today, you can’t really tell. Unless you know your history, or spend some time in its museums, it’s just another town. KCMO is certainly still a cool city, but it used to be one of the wildest in the USA, and that’s certainly worth some thought.