St. Louis truly was "wetter than the Mississippi" during the prohibition years, rife with saloons and scandals. This 18-chapter volume takes the reader back to a fascinating period through old newspaper stories, oral history accounts, and more. A lively narrative focuses on the greater St. Louis area and includes stories from a 150-mile radius into Missouri and Illinois: Boonville, Bowling Green, and Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to Nauvoo, Decatur, Springfield, and deep southern Illinois. The book's centerpiece features the 1920s-era gangs that specialized in bootleg booze and bloodshed in St. Louis and southern and central Illinois. Also featured are the brewing and wine industries, law enforcement, elected officials, the Ku Klux Klan, home brewers and amateur bootleggers, nightspots around town, a failed whiskey-siphoning scheme and a high-profile beer protection scandal, historical background of prohibition, and more.