Most of us are well aware that there was a time in the United States when it was illegal to produce, sell, or possess alcohol.
We know it as the era of Prohibition, the time of legendary figures like Al Capone and Elliott Ness.
But it’s safe to say that a lot of Canadians don’t know that we had our own version of Prohibition.
The reasons were different. In Canada, it was just as much a way to conserve grain during the First World War as it was trying to stamp out what some at the time believed to be the irredeemable evil of alcohol.
But it wasn’t that alcohol itself was banned. You could have alcoholic drinks. They just had to have an alcohol level of 2.5 per cent or less.
It was during the time of prohibition that fortunes were made in places like Windsor, where bootlegging and supplying the U.S. with banned alcohol was big business.
There were those in Windsor who were fierce believers in Prohibition, including the man who became one the city’s Liquor Inspectors.
Joseph Oswald Leslie Spracklin, a local Methodist minister, made it his life's mission to police Canada’s prohibition law by any means necessary, including homicide.
On this episode of the 519 Podcast, we tell the story of the alcohol-fighting Reverend who got away with murder.
Listen here: