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"County Towns Long Alternated On Allowing Local Liquor Sale" article from the Daily Recorder-Gazette newspaper

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"Prohibition," the national ban on alcohol production and sale, ended with the repeal of the eighteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. As this article in the Greenfield Daily Recorder Gazette shows, the repeal of prohibition did not end conflicts over the sale of alcohol. In fact, national repeal returned the debate to the local level, where it had been an important part of political life in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This article discusses in some detail conflicts between "drys" (anti-alcohol) and "wets" (anti restrictions on alcohol) in various towns in Franklin County. Towns with larger, more urbanized populations tended to support alcohol sale. Smaller rural communities tended to oppose it. Ethnic and religious divisions fueled heated debates over alcohol consumption and sale.

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