In February 1933 national Prohibition was still the law, though Congress was already moving to repeal it. That month federal officers from Pocatello went out to the Crystal country on Rattlesnake Creek and seized a still and two barrels of mash, and five men were arrested. The Pocatello Tribune carried the story on its front page on Sunday, February 19, 1933.
The raid
The Tribune's account is short. Federal agents from Pocatello set out on Friday, February 17, using a sled to cover the thirty miles into the Crystal country. Their destination was a place the paper called the "Vic" Green ranch, and what they carried away from it was a fifty-gallon still and two barrels of mash. Only one man, Hugh Jackson, was arrested on the ranch itself, accused of possessing liquor-making equipment.
The arrests of C. G. Allen, Victor Green, B. W. Iverson and Ed Phillips came elsewhere, close to the airport. The four were traveling in one rig, and about a gallon of whiskey turned up in it. According to the officers, the men had left the road a little earlier to get rid of ten gallons of moonshine in a keg, and the agents believed the four were on their way to Pocatello from the Rattlesnake still. All five were taken on Saturday before F. E. Tydeman, the United States commissioner. None of them asked for a preliminary hearing, and bond was put at $750 apiece.
The rest of that front page fills in the circumstances. A weather item reported 8.4 inches of snow on the ground in Pocatello, which helps account for the sled. An Associated Press story from Washington said the House was expected to approve the Senate's resolution to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment, and that many state legislatures were ready to act on it quickly. Will Rogers's wire to the Tribune, on the same page, also touched on repeal.
Who they were
The Tribune gave no ages or home towns, so the men can only partly be connected with the Crystal families the papers knew.
Victor Green is the clearest. The still stood on a ranch bearing his name in the Crystal country, and a Victor Green had been part of Crystal since at least 1918, when the Crystal column of the American Falls Press reported that he had bought a new Dodge car. In December 1923 the Crystal schoolchildren's news noted that every farmer had finished threshing except Victor Green, and in March 1924 the Gabbert School news reported that he was working in Pocatello for the time being. That September his land in section 18, township 9 south, range 34 east, was on the county's list of unpaid 1920 taxes. The 1930 census, as read for this site's family research, found Victor Greene, 30, born in Missouri, at Crystal with his wife Nellie and their household. The man arrested in 1933 was very probably this Crystal farmer, though the Tribune did not say whether he still lived on the ranch.
Hugh Jackson is less certain. A Hugh L. Jackson of Crystal was a witness for other Crystal settlers' homestead proofs in 1913 and 1914, Elizabeth Jackson's among them, and received the patent on a Crystal homestead of his own in 1915. By October 1917 the Press listed "the old homestead of Hugh L. Jackson," over on Little Muddy Creek, as part of J. C. Davis's Triple J Ranch. The 1930 census of the Crystal precinct includes a Hugh Jackson, 49, born in Pennsylvania. The man arrested at the still may well be the same Hugh Jackson, but the Tribune does not say so.
The paper gave nothing to place C. G. Allen, B. W. Iverson or Ed Phillips, and this site does not try to identify them from their names alone.
What is not known
No later report of the five cases has been found, so it is not known how they ended. Nor do the papers read for this post say who built or ran the still, or how long it had been working. What the Tribune printed were the officers' charges and their account of the arrests.
On this site: Crystal; Crystal, the hidden settlement up Rattlesnake Creek; Crystal will be almost deserted: the winter of 1923–24; two earlier stills, the Saulsberry still at Sunbeam in 1922 and a moonshine still on Bannock Creek in 1924; and how Arbon and Crystal voted on liquor in 1914.
The story as reported
Pocatello Tribune, February 19, 1933, page 1. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.
Five men were facing federal prohibition charges after Pocatello agents raided a ranch on Rattlesnake Creek in the Crystal country, the Tribune reported. Its opening line used the case to show that a prohibition agent's life is "not a bed of roses."
Using a sled, the officers made a thirty-mile trip out to Crystal on Friday, February 17. A fifty-gallon still and two barrels of mash were seized at what they identified as the "Vic" Green ranch. Hugh Jackson was arrested there and charged with having liquor-making equipment.
The remaining four, C. G. Allen, Victor Green, B. W. Iverson and Ed Phillips, were picked up close to the airport, all in one rig, with about a gallon of whiskey aboard. Shortly before they were caught, the officers said, the men left the road long enough to throw out a keg holding ten gallons of moonshine. The agents thought the four had come from the Rattlesnake still and were bound for Pocatello.
All five appeared on Saturday, February 18, before U.S. Commissioner F. E. Tydeman. None asked for a preliminary hearing, and the bond for each was $750.
Sources
- Pocatello Tribune, February 19, 1933, page 1
- American Falls Press, October 30, 1913, page 7
- American Falls Press, July 30, 1914, page 5
- Homestead patent to Hugh L. Jackson, 1915 (IDBL 0013554)
- American Falls Press, October 2, 1917, page 4
- American Falls Press, May 28, 1918, page 4
- American Falls Press, December 6, 1923, page 2
- American Falls Press, March 20, 1924, page 2
- American Falls Press, September 18, 1924, page 6
- 1930 U.S. census, Power County, Idaho, Crystal precinct (enumeration district 39-5)