Oral History Interview with Thomas McGinnis

[Begin Interview] McGinnis: (?) I know (?) down around there.

Nally: (I think we're going?) McGinnis: It was the general idea to get the whiskey up and (?) the warehouse down.

Nally: The following is an interview with Thomas Moore McGinnis of 109 South Third Street, Bardstown, Kentucky, interviewed by Flaget Nally for the Kentucky Oral History Commission, speaking on Prohibition days in Nelson County, Kentucky. This is January the eighteenth, 1989. Mr. Moore, Ginny, Tom Moore McGinnis, attended St. Joe prep school, graduated 1:00there 1928, and Notre Dame, where he graduated in 1932. He is married to Carolyn Hurst. They have six children: Thomas, Jr., John, Barbara, Mary, Robert and William. Mr. McGinnis, Tom, can I call you that? Tell me, how old were you when Prohibition started?

McGinnis: I'd have been about seven years old. It started in 1916?

Nally: 1920, I believe.

McGinnis: Prohibition, 1920?

Nally: Yes.

McGinnis: I was ten years old. I was born in 1910. That would make me ten, wouldn't it?

Nally: Yes. So you were ten.

McGinnis: Ten. Ten, eleven.

Nally: Tell me how, what impressions you had as a ten year old when this phenomenon happened in Nelson County.

McGinnis: (There was a lot of?) hoopla.

Nally: You saw a lot of things 2:00 happening.

McGinnis: Well, I don't mean that. They had three bars here in town. Saloons. Two up on Main Street, and one back of the hotel over there. Back there where the kitchen is now, they had a bar back there in the hotel.

Nally: What hotel was that?

McGinnis: Talbot Tavern.

Nally: Oh, I see. The famous Talbot Tavern.

McGinnis: Yeah. They had a bar, had a bar back there where the kitchen is now. A livery stable back, the livery stable was back there where the garage is, where Seger's garage, that was the old livery stable.

Nally: And a little boy noticed all those things. Well, give us a background of your family, and what your family was doing. What was their business at this time?

McGinnis: Well, my (?) he was a 3:00storekeeper/gager. He was in charge of all these gagers on the (?) around here. And he made a run from, all up and down that line, that line from Springfield to Bardstown and down to (Shepherd Hill?). I went to all those distilleries with him when he'd (?) Nally: You did?

McGinnis: He'd take me out. He was a gager. (Alcohol?) man, you know.

Nally: Yes.

McGinnis: Tax collector, in other words.

Nally: Yes.

McGinnis: Tax collector. Of course, when Prohibition came, he lost his job. It went out. He went in the bank after that.

Nally: I see.

McGinnis: So when (?) it was the around the distillery out at Early Times (?) And he gave the old man a job at the Farmers Bank. He owned, (Shoney?) owned the Farmers Bank.

Nally: How interesting. Well when you talk about all the distilleries, can you name a few of them for us?

McGinnis: Well, let's see. You go up there on the line, you come up from Springfield, 4:00the first one would be Greenbriar. And you hit Early Times on the railroad (?) every night, at Greenbriar and you'd get off at Bardstown. Of course, the Tom Moore distillery was down the road here. It wasn't on the railroad. But most of them were on the railroad. Had one out at Nazareth.

Nally: Was that the Beam distillery out in Nazareth?

McGinnis: Oh, that wasn't. The (?), I think, but I forget the name of it. Had one down here where the state garage is in Bardstown. Walker distillery. They were all falling down there at that time. They just abandoned the damn things, what they did when Prohibition came. Distilleries themselves.

Nally: In other words, there was nobody even overseeing anything there. The property just was walked off from?

McGinnis: Well, no. The property, (but there wasn't nothing done?) They have all those machinery and everything just abandoned. We used to play in them. Big old tanks.

Nally: Well, what happened to all the whiskey that was stored in the warehouses?

McGinnis: I'll tell you, they stole it 5:00and sold it.

Nally: Now how could they get in to steal it? Wasn't it locked and bolted?

McGinnis: That's hearsay. That's hearsay. That's hearsay. That's hearsay.

Nally: But it was, around town, the word was that it was being confiscated.

McGinnis: (?) say it was for medicinal purposes.

Nally: Oh, I see. Well now, that was legal.

McGinnis: Oh, yeah. That's what they were supposed to do with it. The government kept it under bond. It was supposed to be bonded warehouses. They were all bonded warehouses, and the government had control of the whiskey.

Nally: I see.

McGinnis: So they get their taxes.

Nally: And so some of these distilleries were given permission to stay open as medicinal dispensers.

McGinnis: Oh, yeah. They bottled their whiskey, some of them, and you still see some of their bottles around. I had a bottle or two of it around here for a long time. Bottled back there at (?) we called medicinal whiskey. You could get it at the drugstore. You get a prescription from your doctor to go get it. 6:00Nally: So you had to go to your doctor. And then you went to your pharmacist. Did you buy it at the drugstore?

McGinnis: Yeah, you'd buy it at the drugstore.

Nally: I see. So the distilleries dispensed it and then sold it to the drugstores?

McGinnis: Medicinal whiskey, what they sold.

Nally: Was it 100 proof?

McGinnis: It was a good one, yeah. (?) bought in bottles. Yeah, (it's all?) bottle of (bottled?) whiskey.

Nally: Well, why did some of the distilleries get permission to dispense this medicinal whiskey, and others didn't?

McGinnis: Well, they all did. They all got rid of their whiskey that way. They didn't make them burn, throw their whiskey out.

Nally: They bought all their whiskey.

McGinnis: All that whiskey was stored in their warehouses. They're (proud of it?) when they went in this. As I say, most of it hit the bootleg market, or they stole it from the government, is what they did.

Nally: Now when, how did that happen?

McGinnis: They (did it?) from the government, either. They stole it from, the distillery owned the whiskey. It was in the warehouses. He owned it. And he had to dispose of it best he could, 7:00I guess. And it's used in medicinal purposes if (he wasn't always broke?).

Nally: Well what happened to, when the bootleggers came and go their share illegally, where did they take it, and how did they dispense of it? Did they take it to the hills? Did they hide it in places?

McGinnis: Bootleggers made their own whiskey.

Nally: Well, they didn't steal any, then, from the warehouses, the bootleggers. I thought--

McGinnis: That was in the market. You could buy good whiskey and you could buy bad whiskey.

Nally: Oh, so you knew--

McGinnis: It depends on what kind of whiskey you want to pay for it.

Nally: I see.

McGinnis: All these moonshiners went in business right away. There wasn't any tax on that whiskey. Moonshine whiskey.

Nally: Well how--

McGinnis: Everybody out in Balltown made whiskey.

Nally: Now tell us where Balltown is.

McGinnis: Well, here you've been all your life.

Nally: Well, see, that has to be on our recording here. Balltown is what, ten miles out of Bardstown, down 31E South?

McGinnis: Yeah.

Nally: Some people's not heard of Balltown.

McGinnis: (there was a store?) If you (?) whiskey, 8:00(everywhere?) in Nelson County, (everywhere?) in Kentucky during Prohibition (?) Nally: That's where you could get it.

McGinnis: Well, maybe. They made it in that area. There's a lot of weeds out in there. Bushes.

Nally: Sort of hidden?

McGinnis: Back there where that lake is, there's all that stuff, all that hills and (?) any roads back in there.

Nally: I guess it was pretty dangerous territory then, wasn't it? Were people afraid to go back in there unless they knew somebody?

McGinnis: There wasn't enough road. They didn't want to go out there and run up on a man's moonshine still. He'd probably shoot you. Guarding his property.

Nally: Well, I guess this is true. What would a bottle of moonshine whiskey, a pint of moonshine whiskey, cost in those days?

McGinnis: Well, you could buy it any place in town. Everybody bootlegging. 9:00Almost any, a dollar. A dollar for a half pint.

Nally: A dollar for a half pint.

McGinnis: It was drinkable. But later on, they kept (home making, hill making?), I guess.

Nally: How would you describe Bardstown when all the distilleries went under this siege and everything had to change and people had to shift their whole lifestyle? What would you say? Was it chaotic? Were people panicked? Did it affect the banks?

McGinnis: I don't know what it did. I was too young! I was (?) Nally: Yeah. Did you hear it discussed in your home?

McGinnis: (Not really?) Nally: Well, let's think. What about the moral climate of Bardstown? Of course, you were too young to remember a lot of that, too. But I just wondered, you know, when the money 10:00exchanged hands in the ways it did and things happened as they did, it changes, you know, the way people lived and the (hate?). Did they get more reckless?

McGinnis: People just people. (?) Nally: Just about the same, then.

McGinnis: Same old people, no matter what they do.

Nally: Well did things close? Did businesses close along with the distilleries? Or did things remain about the same uptown?

McGinnis: Same old story uptown it ever was. They're still up there right now, most of them.

Nally: Same ones on Main Street.

McGinnis: On Main Street. Same. We got rid of a few saloons up there. Putting in the Louisville store. (It's a damned?) old country town, (it were?).

Nally: Could you tell, were people apprehensive as it began to be-- 11:00McGinnis: Well that was Depression. People were out of money, if that's what you're talking about.

Nally: Yeah.

McGinnis: I don't think Prohibition had anything to do with it. Some of them Prohibition people had more money than anybody, these bootleggers. Moonshiners. They were rich people.

Nally: They weren't suffering, then.

McGinnis: No. No. They were doing good.

Nally: And what about the federal government and all? Did it try, did it try to control all this a whole lot? Or did they realize that it was going to happen, regardless of their efforts to control it?

McGinnis: They would confiscate the moonshine. Most of the moonshine down there out in the weeds, around Boston, those hills over there, down around New Haven. And Balltown. Right in there, (?) that was all rough country, and good place. And those people knew how to make whiskey back in there. They all worked in distilleries around here. 12:00They just (?) moonshiners made all the money. And they used to, bootleg whiskey, they'd make it out there. All the bootleggers come out here and get it.

Nally: Now how would they transport it? It had to be done in secret. How did they do it?

McGinnis: They had cars. Just like a car, they all had good cars.

Nally: They all had fine vehicles.

McGinnis: Oh, hell, yes. And you could tell them when we put that (?) down there on the corner by the church, and they'd fill up that New Haven Road, that Boston Road, and go through town that way and go out to Louisville, road goes to Louisville (?) traffic. And (?) cars, you'd see a fancy car with a guy driving it, you knew very well he had whiskey in it.

Nally: And they never got intercepted?

McGinnis: Oh, yeah, they'd catch them down there on the corner. They put a stakeout down around on the corner down there, but, 13:00by the Crumes' house, right there on that corner. Where they came up there, see, that (?) came up the Boston Road, the Springfield Road, that was all one road that came out. And it turned left to go up by the school, go on out to Louisville. And they'd catch them there and they'd open the car up and get, we'd watch them (?) search the car. And they had tacks in the back of the seats, copper tacks and jugs and (?) little barrel jugs. They'd throw it all in the gutter. They'd throw it in the gutter down there by that colored school down there by the (?).

Nally: St. Monica's?

McGinnis: That was a drainage ditch down through there. Big drainage ditch down through there. All the water on that end of town ran down. They'd throw it in the gutter there.

Nally: Well did they break up the containers and go through all that, like we see in pictures?

McGinnis: Yeah, they had it in tin cans and everything else in those cars, carrying it. 14:00And they'd be stopping and resting.

Nally: Take them all to jail here in Nelson County?

McGinnis: Yeah. Book them.

Nally: And then did they let them go? Or did they keep them for a while and try them?

McGinnis: They let them go, I think. Well, some of them got to do some time. Got in trouble bad, they'd send you to Atlanta.

Nally: And in Atlanta, you stayed a while, didn't you?

McGinnis: Yeah. If you got to Atlanta, the (?) guys (?) went to Atlanta.

Nally: Well now, tell me your connection with Thomas Moore Distilling Company here. Explain that for the people in Frankfort.

McGinnis: I had no connection with it.

Nally: No connection at all?

McGinnis: No.

Nally: I didn't know whether they were members of your family.

McGinnis: When Prohibition came, my grandfather sold it. He got out of the whiskey business.

Nally: Yes.

McGinnis: It was over. He quit. And his son, Con Moore, Connie Moore's daddy-- 15:00Nally: Yes.

McGinnis: He really took it over, the distillery down there. And he had old distillery property, Con Moore owned it. And he owned it for a long time. And he sold it, when Prohibition came back in, he sold it to somebody and they started a distillery down there.

Nally: Are you familiar with Mr. Oscar (Getz?) Did you ever meet him or know him?

McGinnis: No, I don't fool with those Chicago Jews.

Nally: Well, he came down here because he knew it was going to be a big business again, after Prohibition.

McGinnis: They had, these people down here didn't have no money.

Nally: That's right.

McGinnis: They had some money, these people, they had the property and the know how to make the whiskey. And when Prohibition was over with, they jumped in down here. They bought that old Tom Moore distillery, it's right on the original property that Tom Moore distillery was. They used some of the warehouses. Still using them.

Nally: And that's the one that Connie Moore, 16:00old Mr. Connie Moore, originally started.

McGinnis: Well, his daddy did.

Nally: His daddy did.

McGinnis: My grandfather, his daddy.

Nally: And then, when it was called Tom Moore, that was your--

McGinnis: Grandfather.

Nally: Grandfather. Okay. Did you ever work there? Did you ever work there yourself in the distillery?

McGinnis: Since it restarted up?

Nally: Uh huh.

McGinnis: I worked there a little bit.

Nally: Did you?

McGinnis: Made a little mash down there. Wasn't no jobs then. You had to do something. That was a job. Jobs, you've heard of jobs, haven't you?

Nally: Big job time. People, that's all they thought of was something to support life.

McGinnis: Jobs.

Nally: We that were born after this era don't know, do we? We just don't know what you lived through when you lived through these times.

McGinnis: Most of the times the Depression, I was with, I used to work for the Standard Oil Company, (?) with a tank truck. That was (?) Prohibition had been on a long time then, and those moonshiners down there around, over where (Millard?) 17:00Lake is then in that country, I used to take a tank truck, run out there, down those narrow roads. And these guys would come out of the woods-- (?) with the wagon. Horse wagon. (?) They'd have several barrels in there. They'd run their moonshine off of kerosene. And they would load the barrels up, and then they would take it back. Go to work.

Nally: Oh my. Now that, what year was that?

McGinnis: I don't know. That was in the '30s.

Nally: In the '30s.

McGinnis: Yeah. Yeah. '33, '34. Right before Prohibition, just before Prohibition (?) Nally: Well Prohibition ended, I think, December 4, 18:00 1933.

McGinnis: Well.

Nally: Well do you remember Jim Beam? Can you tell me anything about him?

McGinnis: (Old man lived?) Nally: Yeah.

McGinnis: Lived up there on Main Street. Everybody in town was richer than Jim Beam.

Nally: Is that so?

McGinnis: You've heard that expression, haven't you?

Nally: Yes. I never understood it. Did he go bankrupt during Prohibition?

McGinnis: No, he had a big, he lived up there on Main Street. He had plenty of money.

Nally: Did he?

McGinnis: Those guys that got out of there had the money. My grandfather--

Nally: Well, he sold all that.

McGinnis: He sold out. They got the money when they sold out. Yeah.

Nally: I see.

McGinnis: And Jim had a Pierce Arrow with a (?) nigger drive it. Hell, he was uptown.

Nally: So it didn't bother him, because he went on with medicinal, and sold it to the government.

McGinnis: Well he sold his, when he got rid of his distillery, he just sold his distillery. Some (?) in Chicago bought it, anyway, speculators. 19:00He was out of the business. He wasn't in it. Later on, Jerry got in that new distillery down there, started it.

Nally: Well who were some of the other figures, like Jim Beam, that were in the business at the time that it all happened?

McGinnis: Louis Guthrie.

Nally: Yes. Was he Early Times?

McGinnis: He was out at John (Shoney's?), he worked with Earl Times.

Nally: Yes. And he made a lot of money during that time, didn't he?

McGinnis: Who?

Nally: Louis.

McGinnis: He stole the whiskey. When he closed up, was when John (Shoney?) got out of it, he (did?) the town here. And he got out of the whiskey business. And the governor's (bookkeeper?) worked for him out there. And they ended up building that house out there. 20:00That farmhouse out there at Early Times farm.

Nally: Yes. I remember that.

McGinnis: When he closed the distillery down, the governor was out there, and some friends of his, like Will Stiles. They got a lot of the whiskey and put it in the governor's basement. In the vault out there.

Nally: No kidding!

McGinnis: They have a vault in the basement. Because we used to steal whiskey from it. (?) Newman.

Nally: His son Newman?

McGinnis: Yeah. We'd go camping. Newman always had to get the whiskey. And he would (?) from his daddy, take it out of the basement. He'd get the (?) Newman brought the whiskey up (?) camping. Oh, (?) whiskey, oh. They'd hold it, and some guys came out (?) someplace. The government came out there, and held him up and robbed it. Stole all his whiskey from him.

Nally: No, I had never heard that.

McGinnis: Huh?

Nally: No, I didn't. There's just too much to hear.

McGinnis: (?) (was out there. He was a kid, then, I guess. I don't remember, guess you remember?) Nally: Ben Guthrie.

McGinnis: Yeah. I guess you would remember. He was one of the (?) But anyhow, they did, they held him up. Some guys stole his whiskey. He had all that good whiskey-- 21:00Nally: Right in his own basement.

McGinnis: Basement. They knew it was in there. They come down there and they get it. Carried it away. With a gun.

Nally: With a gun. Everybody used guns then to make sure it was all carried out pretty well, didn't they?

McGinnis: (?) without a gun. 22:00Nally: Well, do you remember the city and the county officials at that time? Who was in charge?

McGinnis: (?) when they were talking about that whiskey deal, they caught these guys, some of them. And they had a little (?) one night. We went down, looked in the window of (?) And they had them in there, and they were (?) around. Chuck (?) was sheriff.

Nally: Chuck (Hammond?) McGinnis: Chuck (Hammond?), he's the sheriff. And there's several of them, and they (?) I don't know what they were doing in there, just you'd look in the window. When they got through, the guy reached in his hip pocket, pulled out a half pint, passed it around. They all took a drink. Looked like he had some good whiskey, anyhow.

Nally: Well that was not unusual, was it, for those days?

McGinnis: No. The sheriff, he drank good whiskey.

Nally: The sheriff did, too. Well everybody did, didn't they? 23:00They had before, so you know they didn't stop then.

McGinnis: Get a chance to (?) good whiskey (?) They had the (?) stuff out there.

Nally: Well who was the mayor? Do you remember that?

McGinnis: (?) Nally: I see.

McGinnis: He was no mayor.

Nally: But he was the official mayor. I mean, he may have not been terribly--

McGinnis: Yeah, if you want a mayor. But (?) doesn't say he's a mayor, he was it. And so it did. He wasn't, he was no politician.

Nally: Well, I guess he--

McGinnis: (?) mayor, didn't have no mayor. Mayor didn't have nothing to do.

Nally: Who did, then? Who ruled the town, as far as law and order? Was it the sheriff?

McGinnis: I guess it was. I don't know. Don't think anybody did. 24:00Nally: There just really wasn't any law and order.

McGinnis: Oh, yeah. I guess the sheriff was the highest arresting officer in the town. (?) Prohibition (man?) here in Bardstown.

Nally: I bet he had a hard life.

McGinnis: (?) first policeman. I remember the first policeman they had.

Nally: Who was he?

McGinnis: (Heady Tom?) was the first one.

Nally: He has a longstanding reputation.

McGinnis: He had a deputy.

Nally: But the city government, like we know it now.

McGinnis: They had a chief, they always had chief of police. I remember (?) I don't remember the man's name, I can't think of it. 25:00(?) Nally: Mr. Burba?

McGinnis: No. Burba worked for Heady.

Nally: Oh. He was just a deputy, huh?

McGinnis: Burba was, he didn't like the (?) Nally: Oh, I see.

McGinnis: Burba, he was a barber and a night patrol.

Nally: Did you see, during Prohibition, an influx of people from the cities? Were they out here trying to confiscate the whiskey? You know the reputation of Chicago and the gangsters that came out of there with the liquor business. Was there any of that shifted here?

McGinnis: The only gangsters I know is that ones that robbed the (gov?) out here at Early Times.

Nally: Really? I didn't know if Al Capone's people had drifted down or not.

McGinnis: No, no, it didn't have any of that.

Nally: Didn't have any of that.

McGinnis: I don't think so. I didn't see it.

Nally: Were there frequent arrests and that type of thing going on? People 26:00getting called in by the government, the federal agents and all that?

McGinnis: There were federal agents out here always chasing them. (?) some of them.

Nally: This is (?) McGinnis: (?) moonshine, the guys would run. They weren't no fools. They'd take off through the weeds.

Nally: Were there a lot of shootings?

McGinnis: (?) No, it was just good friendly whiskey drinking.

Nally: So there really wasn't a lot of animosity between the federal government, the federal people, and the people that were into moonshining and all. They all understood one another, I guess.

McGinnis: Oh, yeah.

Nally: And I'm sure they understood, too, that the family had to be supported somehow, and this was the method.

McGinnis: Oh, it didn't have nothing to do with it.

Nally: They didn't care about that.

McGinnis: Why would it? They had a job to do.

Nally: Yes.

McGinnis: They wasn't sitting on every corner, looking for bootleggers. 27:00They'd have to arrest everybody in Nelson County.

Nally: Well, let's see. How did the churches, did you hear anything in the pulpit? For instance, were the priests at St. Joseph's or the Baptist minister at the church here, were they into talking about this? Did they preach about--

McGinnis: Out of St. Thomas, they promoted it.

Nally: They did?

McGinnis: Hell, yeah. I think they (?) moonshiners themselves. They got their farm out there, you know.

Nally: Yes.

McGinnis: I don't know what they did out there, really. That's where all the moonshiners came from, it was the biggest wheels in the church, out of St. Thomas. The moonshiners.

Nally: So of course they didn't say a thing.

McGinnis: No. No. They wasn't turning anybody in, if that's what you're talking about.

Nally: That's what I wondered. 28:00McGinnis: No. They were for them.

Nally: They were.

McGinnis: Yeah, they hide them.

Nally: Protect them, etcetera.

McGinnis: Yeah. Prohibition wasn't very popular around this area.

Nally: Well do you remember Father O'Connell? Was he at St. Joseph's, I think, in the 1920s?

McGinnis: Yeah. I made my first communion with him.

Nally: You did? We've got a wonderful group of artifacts of Father O'Connell's at the museum. Just some beautiful things. He wrote some prayer books and things. Well, what did he have to say? Did he get into it at all?

McGinnis: He died, he died pretty soon after that. He wasn't around much.

Nally: Oh, he wasn't?

McGinnis: I just barely made my first communion when he died, I think.

Nally: Oh, I see.

McGinnis: I made (it before my years?).

Nally: Well what about the surrounding counties?

McGinnis: We knew Father Tom because I lived down there right next to him, down there on that street.

Nally: You did.

McGinnis: There were (?) lives, that's where 29:00(Ray's?) lived there forever. For a long time.

Nally: He was a fine man.

McGinnis: Moores lived across the street. (?) Moores, that's a big family. (?).

Nally: Is that the houses that are gone now? The ones that--

McGinnis: No, they're all there. The Moore house is gone. That's where Sheltons--

Nally: Yeah.

McGinnis: It's still there. Spaldings lived on the corner.

Nally: That house is gone now.

McGinnis: Yeah.

Nally: What about Marion County and Washington County? Did they all just blend in together with Nelson County and about the same type of behavior? Do you know? You don't.

McGinnis: I wasn't traveling much in those days.

Nally: Well, that's right. Did many people have cars? 30:00Or were most people on foot, doing everything?

McGinnis: Everybody had cars. Model Ts.

Nally: I didn't know whether there was much car action or not with all this--

McGinnis: (?) Sure, there's cars.

Nally: I thought people just had so little money that they couldn't, didn't own them.

McGinnis: Well, some, a lot of them, there were still a few buggies around, horse and buggies. Still a few of those around.

Nally: Really.

McGinnis: You go out on a dark night, you'd run into one on a narrow bridge, sure as hell.

Nally: Well how strict were the doctors in giving these prescriptions?

McGinnis: I don't know about that. I never-- Most people around here didn't bother with a prescription. They got their own whiskey. Knew how to get it.