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Prohibition program at Norway museum

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(Jake Menghini Museum) PETER DEDECKER’S SALOON, Seventh Avenue in Norway, circa 1920, shows a pre-Prohibition saloon. Pictured may be John J. DeDecker (1915-1981), son of Peter and Elodie “Mary” DeDecker. Peter DeDecker was born Nov. 14, 1882, near Brussels, Belgium. He immigrated to the United States in 1905, with his parents, and resided in Chicago, for a year. He moved to Norway, and married Elodie “Mary” Jossens (Joosens), born in Belgium in 1885, on Oct. 23, 1905. According to the 1907 city directory he worked as a miner. He opened a tavern in Norway and was proprietor of the Crystal Lunch, 508 Seventh Ave. In 1925, Peter and Elodie sold soft drinks at Arthur Street, east of Nelson Street. In 1935, they ran a restaurant on Seventh Avenue, which also was their residence.

NORWAY -- "The Prohibition Era on the Eastern Menominee Iron Range," a PowerPoint presentation by local historian Bill Cummings, will take place at 2 and 6 p.m. today at the Jake Menghini Museum in Norway.

In addition to recounting this colorful era of the roaring 20s, the program includes a brief history of the Temperance Movement in the United States and the origin of terms useful in understanding Prohibition, such as "blind pig," "blind tiger," "speakeasy," "rum-running" and "bootlegging."

A few local contemporary newspaper articles from the 1880s and 1890s illustrate the results of excessive alcohol consumption, including saloon brawls, in early Iron Mountain and the surrounding area.

Additional local contemporary accounts provide insight into the introduction of Prohibition laws first at the state level after Michigan Prohibition began on May 1, 1918, and then when the implementation of 18th amendment went into effect nationally on Jan. 16, 1920.

These articles deal with local moonshiners, raids by federal, state and local officials, trials and sentencing hearings.

Numerous historic photographs of area saloons predating the Prohibition Era help illustrate the raids and arrests made in these same places during the 1920s. Colorful and amusing sheet music covers and some lyrics also give flavor to public sentiment immediately before and during Prohibition's early years.

Cleaning up "The Midway" in downtown Iron Mountain, a focal point during spring 1926, is highlighted. Raids staged by Sheriff Frank Cleveland, Iron Mountain Chief of Police Rudolph Freeman and Dickinson County Prosecuting Attorney Ray E. MacAllister, together with federal agents and city policemen, as well as private investigators, really cracked down on gambling, prostitution and prohibition.

The information in the presentation comes from "The Prohibition Era on the Eastern Menominee Iron Range: A Compilation of Contemporary local Newspaper articles Documenting Prohibition," Cummings' recently published 214-page book.

Copies are available for $21.20, including tax, at the Menominee Range Historical Foundation office or by calling 906-828-1822.

Copies also will be available after the presentation. all proceeds go to the foundation to help support its three museums.

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