In the 1920s, under national Prohibition, law enforcement activity in the Central Susquehanna Valley was a combination of local, state, and federal efforts. Prohibition agents from Philadelphia and Harrisburg mixed in with state police and county sheriffs to stage raids on saloons and hotels suspected of serving beverages with illegal alcohol content. They also stopped automobiles known to be transporting illegal booze and raided stills on area farms and forests.
On the other side of the contest, local residents were certainly involved in the underground world of bootlegging and rum-running. The most common activities—at least those that appeared in local newspapers—were the transport of small amounts of alcohol in cars and trucks, establishments selling beer with too much “kick,” and a seemingly unending circulation of bootleg whiskey.
Click on the markers below for Prohibition-era events in the Central Susquehanna Valley
One of the earliest moonshine raids in Snyder County came in May 1921, when state Prohibition agents swarmed the Clarence Hummel farm, a few miles west of Middleburg. There, they found 33-year-old Benny Azar (aka Bennie Azorovitz, aka Benjamin Azora, aka Benny Azaricoz, aka Bennie Azariecz) operating a whiskey still. They confiscated the still, six gallons of prune whiskey, and large quantities of prunes, raisins, and corn. Azar, quickly dubbed the “Prune King,” was charged at a hearing before a federal commissioner in Sunbury. It was alleged that he squatted on the Hummel farm without permission for six months, and the Harrisburg Telegraph claimed that he had held the region in a “state of terror.” The local papers emphasized his Polishness, implying that his ethnicity told readers all they needed to know. The signs of a bootlegging operation had been evident in the first half of 1921. First, Azar had been buying a perplexing amount of prunes from local wholesalers. Second, the area west of Middleburg had seen a sudden increase in the amount of moonshine circulating just out of sight of the authorities. It didn’t take long for Prohibition agents to connect the dots.
Azar did not contest the charges, but he passionately attested to being a changed man. If he was given a second chance, he would become a model citizen. His plea worked; Azar received a suspended sentence and a warning to ditch the bootlegging business for good. As the Selinsgrove Times observed, his subsequent behavior “apparently consisted of returning to Snyder County to continue his operations. Following each of his visits to Lewistown, the police there found much drunkenness.”
Another bust yielded results. Azar’s car broke down one Saturday in September 1921 on the way to deliveries in Lewistown. Mifflin County sheriff M.A. Davis arrested Azar as he tried to empty the car of its illegal contents. Four accomplices were also arrested after a long car chase in the hills of western Snyder County.
In early November, Azar was sentenced in Lewistown to two years in the Mifflin County jail and a fine of $500. Three months into his sentence, Azar was transferred to the Farview State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, after he destroyed two cells and assaulted guards.