Last Night Was the End of the World: Prohibition in Colorado

• Publication year: 2003
• Pages: 41
• Citation: Vol. 32 No. 1 Pg. 41

32 Colo.Law. 41 Colorado Lawyer 2003.

2003, January, Pg. 41. Last Night Was the End of the World: Prohibition in Colorado

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Vol. 32, No. 1, Pg. 41

The Colorado Lawyer
January 2003
Vol. 32, No. 1 [Page 41]

Departments
Historical Perspectives
"Last Night Was the End of the World:" Prohibition in Colorado
by Tom I. Romero, II

This historical perspective was written by Tom I. Romero, II Western Legal Studies Fellow, University of Colorado-Boulder ttromero@spot.colorado.edu

New Year's Eve, 1915, marked the end of an era in Colorado. At midnight 1916, Colorado became one of the first states in the nation to go dry [Chap. 98, Sess. Laws of 1915, amended in 1916 under Chap. 82, Sess. Laws of 1917, and by the so-called "Bone Dry Act," Chap. 141, Sess. Laws of 1919, initiated and passed by Colorado citizens in November 1918]. Mourning not only the ready availability of fine spirits, but the closing of the Western saloon as a central community institution, patrons of Denver's Heidelberg Café sang "Last Night Was the End of the World," as the barkeepers tapped their last glasses on December 31, 1915.

The two-decade-long struggle to prohibit the sale of alcohol ended what many perceived to be the central force driving lawlessness and lewdness in Colorado. As a major component in Colorado's civic life, alcohol and its prohibition encapsulated notions of "American idealism, progressive hopes for a better society, and widespread prejudice against the sorts of people" that did not quite fit a casual definition of a Coloradan or American citizen [Thomas J. Noel, The City and the Saloon: Denver, 1858-1916 (Niwot, CO: Univ. Press of Colorado, 1996) at 111].

The legal effort to prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol began almost as soon as Colorado became a state. For example, early farming and ranching towns enacted ordinances mandating that real estate titles and deeds needed to carry a provision that property would revert to its former owner if liquor were sold on the premises. The political movement to ban alcohol statewide received a major boost in 1893 when Colorado became the second state in the United States to grant women suffrage. With their enhanced political clout, members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union ("WCTU") pushed for laws they believed would not only end drunkenness, but also vice, crime, and other social ills.

The cause of...