DATE: Monday, August 4, 1997                TAG: 9708010877

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   22 lines

1922: PROHIBITION IN NORFOLK

Prohibition, the so-called ``noble experiment'' that tried

unsuccessfully to banish John Barleycorn from the American scene

from 1917 to 1933, was responsible for incidents like this all over

the country during the long dry spell when liquor was temporarily

illegal. Fortunately for local social history buffs, Virginian-Pilot

photographer Charles Borjes was on hand at the foot of City Hall

Avenue and Boush Street around 1922 when government agents gathered

on the deck of the captured rum-runner Silver Spray to dump the

5-gallon bottles of ``white lightning'' it had been transporting

into the Elizabeth River. Judging from the glum expressions on the

faces of most of the bystanders, it is a safe bet that many of them

would have gladly exchanged places with the river.

- George Tucker

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