09/30/2024
The attic was the final space in the 1920 Threefoot home that I helped restore. It’s the space with the most interesting history. This space was straightforward; the sheetrock, floors, and millwork needed some repair from years without climate control. The owner wanted to make a seating area and eventually add another bedroom with future plans.
Back in April, when the Threefoot festival was being held, descendants of the family came to Meridian. The granddaughter of Sam Threefoot Sr. (one of the brothers responsible for the Threefoot building), Shelley Threefoot, visited the home while it was being renovated. She shared rare family photos and documents that Sam Jr. (her father, who lived in the home from age 3-13) had given her. She told us that the attic was a speakeasy during the prohibition and gave us this insert from one of Sam Jr.'s writings:
“Sometimes, I went up in the attic of our house in Meridian with my Father (Sam Sr.) and watched him put caps on bottles with a special type of press. At eight years old, I didn’t know exactly what was in the bottles or how he made it, but I heard Mom and Dad talk about “Home Brew”. Somehow, I got the idea it was a kind of beer, whatever that was. One dark and rainy night, the doorbell rang. Mother and I followed behind my Father as he went to answer it. There was a big man in a trench coat with the collar pulled up around his neck, and his hat pulled down over his brow. My Father seemed nervous as he recognized the figure as a local policeman.
“Mr. Threefoot,” he said in a low voice, “I understand that you have been making “Homebrew.””
Dad faltered as he responded, but he was able to relax considerably when the policeman went on to ask, “Would you swap me two bottles for these two bottles of French Champagne I got when I was in the Army in France?”
-Sam Threefoot JR.
Before the prohibition, Mississippi banned alcohol sales across the state in 1908. While homemade wine was still permitted in some cases, those caught distilling or selling alcohol faced heavy fines and jail sentences. On January 17, 1920, the 18th Amendment was passed by the federal government, and Mississippi — having been dry for over a decade — became the first to ratify it. C. H. Alexander, the author of the 18th Amendment, celebrated the victory by exclaiming, “Nowhere has the victory been more marked and complete than in Mississippi, which, through a brave, honest, law-loving, home-loving legislature, drove the legalized traffic from the whole state.”
Even with the U.S. dry, the people still found ways to find and consume alcohol. The so-called "Speakeasies" of Chicago and New York were infamous and spread nationwide. In Meridian, alcohol was smuggled into town in various shipping containers and vehicles. Kegs and bottled liquor were hidden in crates shipped with caskets headed for funeral homes or marked as “industrial chemicals.” There was a rumor that booze smuggled into town in this manner went directly to the ballroom of the Temple Theater via a tunnel from one of the local funeral homes.
With the Threefoot family being Jewish, they may have had a special permit for kosher wine. Wine has an important role in many Jewish practices, and alcohol was a big business for most families. Many Jews legally supported their families through alcohol-related employment before the prohibition but, after, turned to smuggling to support their way of life. For example, Jews only made up 5% of the entire population, but 50% of them were saloonkeepers. The sacramental exemptions led to broad abuse and a flood of fake rabbis across the country. During the first year of Prohibition, one Los Angeles congregation boasted an increase from 180 member families to over 1,000 families. Some three million gallons were distributed under the sacramental exception.
There is no evidence that the Threefoots were involved with any smuggling or a large home operation, but they owned various businesses around town that could have made distributing or smuggling possible. However, the Threefoots were Jewish AND German making them standout. The Prohibition movement was fueled by anti-German propaganda when the US entered WWI. Since German Americans ran most of the breweries, dry activists argued that buying alcohol was akin to supporting the enemy. This leads me to believe that their German-Jewish background made them an easy target for law enforcement to keep tabs on....or blackmail.
