On June 24, 1930, the Petoskey Evening News reported that state troopers “visited the dance barge at the Bowers Harbor dock about 11 o’clock and went from table to table breaking bottles and glasses, empty or filled, while the patrons were dancing. There, the Keuka opened up its gaming tables and brought out the booze, safely removed from authorities’ watchful gaze (though many law enforcement officials both in the region and further afield took bribes to look the other way).Īll too soon, however, the open secret of the party boat sparked anger among locals, forcing officials to crack down on the enterprise. The speakeasy’s ruse involved picking up passengers at the Mason Street dock in Charlevoix and ferrying them out to the middle of the lake. The Keuka, seen docked on Lake CharlevoixĬourtesy of the Charlevoix Historical Society Partying under the radar “The Keuka represented the drinking and gambling habits of the residents of the area: shopkeepers, laborers, merchants and the common people, as opposed to the upscale casinos” frequented by wealthy out-of-towners who spent their summers at the region’s resorts, says Wiles. The name stemmed from a tradition in which customers paid to see a curiosity, such as a striped or blind pig, and received a complimentary drink on the side. While some speakeasies catered to more elite clientele, the Keuka was a “ blind pig,” a term more often used for lower-end establishments. With seating for some 150 guests, the steam-heated, electrically lit ship boasted a dance hall, a maple deck outfitted with slot machines, a private room for women and a smoking room for gentlemen. It offered roller skating most nights of the week, but the main attraction was the illicit drinking. “That was the cover.” In truth, the Keuka was a floating casino and speakeasy hiding in plain sight. “Management said it was going to be used just as a roller-skating rink, but they were lying,” Roxburgh says. The deck of the wreck of the Keuka © Chris Roxburgh Fuller’s Orchestra provided the music, and couples paid $1.50 for entry. On New Year’s Eve 1929, the Keuka held its grand opening as a “floating dance hall,” as it advertised itself. According to a paper by local historian Richard Wiles, the Wolverine Steamship Company bought the boat in 1928 Gallagher saw his new acquisition as a chance to cash in on Prohibition. Stewart, the Keuka was built in 1889 as a barge for hauling timber. But it’s been a very warm winter, like most of the world, so Lake Charlevoix was not iced over.” Under more typical winter conditions, divers would’ve had to cut a hole through 16 inches of ice to reach the Keuka. “Usually you have to worry in winter dives about big floating ice,” says Roxburgh, “… the same ice that caused many of the 6,000 wrecks in the Great Lakes. The second day of January presented the perfect opportunity for him to explore the vessel, which sank in 1932 and is now a popular destination for divers. He got his first taste of boating within two weeks of being born and started freediving at age 5. Souvenir hunters stripped the Keuka clean of finds decades ago.Ĭhris Roxburgh, an underwater photographer and author based south of Lake Charlevoix in Traverse City, began 2023 with a visit to the wreck of the Keuka. And, in the backwaters of Michigan’s Lake Charlevoix, Captain James Gallagher, president of the Wolverine Steamship Company, turned a leaky old lumber barge, the Keuka, into a floating speakeasy. Others obtained prescriptions that allowed them to legally acquire liquor. To satisfy their thirst, some Americans made gin in their bathtubs. Partying during Prohibition meant keeping the barrels of booze flowing and the hidden speakeasies abundantly stocked. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1931 essay “ Echoes of the Jazz Age.” “The wildest of all generations, the generation which had been adolescent during the confusion of the war, … danced into the limelight.” The dawn of the decade, the author later reflected, saw America embark on “the greatest, gaudiest spree in history.”įor those willing to run afoul of the law, selling liquor to the real-life denizens who inspired The Great Gatsby and other tales of Roaring Twenties excess promised to be highly profitable. “We were tired of great causes,” wrote F. But the government’s plan to temper the nation’s drinking backfired spectacularly. In New York City alone, authorities shut down 15,000 bars. It was the beginning of Prohibition, which banned the manufacture, transport and sale of alcohol. On January 17, 1920, the United States ran dry.
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