Crowds of people flooded the streets of Pittsburgh on the evening of June 30, 1919 — it was a clear, fine evening with none of the usual summer humidity in the air. But it wasn’t only the weather that drew them — the last lovely day of June was also the “last call” before the enactment of nationwide Prohibition.

So eager Pittsburghers turned out en masse, and crowded in to the city’s drinking establishments, from the brass-trimmed bars of downtown hotels to the dingy hole-in-the-wall neighborhood saloons — but the revelry everyone waited for never really came.

“Everybody came to see everybody else get drunk,” the Pittsburgh Post glumly reported the following day, “and nobody got drunk.”

Farther north in New Castle, it was a relatively quiet evening, too — though as the shadows lengthened across the town at sunset, careful observers noted many walking the streets, arms and pockets loaded with bottles. Others lugged suitcases and various other receptacles, the contents clinking as they staggered along under their heavy load.

By morning, New Castle’s liquor wholesalers’ stockrooms were bare and no new inventory was on the way.

There were some revelers in those last days, to be sure.

The Butler Citizen reported that the Saturday night preceding the ban was one “long to be remembered,” as the bars in the city were “crowded by the thirsty ones who wanted to observe the passing of John Barleycorn.” But even then, the paper was careful to note “all seemed to want to enjoy themselves, and none wanted to lose consciousness.”

In Western Pennsylvania, it seems, the era of Prohibition arrived not with a bang, but a whimper.

The quiet beginning of the Prohibition era gave little indication of the dramatic battle that led to its passage, nor the controversy that was to surround the law during the following years.

The saying “politics makes strange bedfellows” was certainly true of Prohibition.

Groups as diverse as woman suffragists, conservative religious moralists, anti-immigrant organizations and industrial capitalists all joined together to rally around the Prohibitionist cause.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Anti-Saloon League became a major force in American politics, mobilizing thousands of voters in every state and using newspapers and mass media to pressure politicians to support prohibition.

While the league discouraged consumption of alcohol generally, the real target of the Prohibition movement was the saloon, which middle-class reformers associated with the worst aspects of immigrant social life. These saloons also often functioned as centers of neighborhood social life — and as instruments of urban political machines.

Pennsylvania was thus in many ways a state primed for Prohibition. A large part of the state was comprised of rural counties populated by large numbers of conservative Protestant prohibitionists, while its urban areas were filled with Southern and Eastern European immigrants for whom consumption of alcohol was a standard part of their culture.

In 1920, more than 25% of Pennsylvania’s adult population were foreign-born immigrants; in major cities or booming industrial communities, the percentage could be as high as 40%.

Beginning in 1907, under pressure from the league and political allies, a large number of state and local governments enacted laws that “dried up” a significant portion of the United States.

In addition to state and local dry laws enacted earlier, in 1917 federal laws greatly restricted the production and sale of alcoholic beverages, supposedly to preserve grain for the use of the military in World War I.

The 18th Amendment, prohibiting “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” within the United States, passed Congress in December 1917, and was ratified in January 1919. In the interim before it became law, the Volstead Act of 1919 provided by law that wartime prohibition would remain in effect until the Amendment came into force.

While the 18th Amendment was designed to kill off the liquor business generally (and especially the saloon) it did not specifically prohibit either the possession or consumption of alcoholic beverages. Private drinking was perfectly legal during Prohibition, and possession of liquor that had been accumulated by the foresighted consumers before prohibition was entirely lawful.

Contrary to popular belief, Prohibition was successful at significantly reducing alcohol consumption — especially in the early years.

For the country as a whole, consumption of alcohol declined by 30% to 40%. Other measures, including cirrhosis deaths, hospitalization for alcoholism, or arrests for public drunkenness also fell by significant rates during the 1920s.

Furthermore, while it’s widely assumed that Prohibition led to an unprecedented explosion of criminal activity, there’s little evidence to back up this claim. Newspapers found that sensational stories about bootleggers and underworld violence sold well, which may have amplified perceptions of crime among the public.

The passage of the 18th Amendment had a significant impact on Pennsylvania’s economy.

Prior to Prohibition, Pennsylvania was a major producer of beer and spirits, with numerous breweries and distilleries located throughout the state. Many of these businesses were forced to close or shift their focus to producing non-alcoholic beverages or food products such as malt syrup and yeast.

Pottsville’s Yuengling Brewing, for example, switched to producing “near beer” (containing one-half of 1% ABV) and also opened a dairy to produce ice cream.

Pennsylvania grape growers along Lake Erie feared the 18th Amendment would mean collapse of their industry, but soon managed to adapt. In addition to marketing grape juice as a healthy, refreshing drink, many growers also added wink-and-nod “warnings” on the packaging: “Caution: do not leave in dark cupboard for 21 days, or product will ferment and turn into wine.” Business remained steady throughout the Prohibition era.

Still, even in its early years, the enforcement of Prohibition was a vexing problem. Convictions were difficult to obtain, and local police forces often turned a blind eye to speakeasies — many were occasional patrons themselves!

Compounding the problem, liquor peddlers in Pennsylvania had a head start on those in other states; speakeasies had been long-running practice in Pennsylvania since 1887, when the state passed a law that made it prohibitively expensive to obtain a saloon license.

Widespread defiance in Western Pennsylvania earned the region the reputation of “wettest spot in the United States.”

An estimate in 1926 found that eight illegal breweries scattered around Pittsburgh produced 10,000 gallons of beer and ale every day.

In one seven-month period, from September 1925, to March 1926, prohibition agents in Western Pennsylvania destroyed 208 stills, producing a combined 70,000 gallons a day, without seriously depleting the local supply.

And while larger bootleggers might encounter dry agent raids, home-manufacturing of liquor, beer and wine was almost impossible to police.

In his farewell speech to the state General Assembly in January 1923, Gov. William Sproul admitted that Prohibition enforcement was thus far a failure in Pennsylvania.

“We are raising a fine brood of criminals,” lamented the outgoing chief executive, “which it will require stern measures to suppress.”

By the late 1920s, the project of Prohibition was coming rapidly unraveled nationwide. Inconsistent and apathetic local law enforcement left the task to an overtaxed network of federal agents.

Harsh immigration restrictions passed by Congress in 1924 had pacified nativist fears that once targeted saloons. And, as the nation hurtled into the crippling grip of the Great Depression in 1930, state and local governments felt even more keenly the tax revenue shortage caused by banning alcohol.

The 1932 Democratic Party platform endorsed the repeal of Prohibition, and the landslide victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt and a Democratic Congress in that year’s election was the death knell.

In February 1922, Congress proposed the 21st Amendment to repeal Prohibition; by December 1933, it was ratified by the states and added to the Constitution.

The repeal of the 18th Amendment, however, did not herald the arrival of unrestrained drinking in Pennsylvania.

Gifford Pinchot, the state’s progressive Republican governor, saw alcohol as a great social evil, and believed it was the duty of government to safeguard the public and democracy itself by regulating public consumption.

In anticipation of the repeal of Prohibition, Pinchot and a special session of the legislature drafted a bi-partisan plan that included a state monopoly on liquor sales, new taxes on alcohol, and a system of state stores.

State stores were to provide liquor as demanded by consumers, but not to provide “artificial stimulation” through pursuit of profit.

“Whisky will be sold by civil service employees,” wrote Pinchot in 1934, “with exactly the same amount of salesmanship as is displayed by an automatic postage stamp vending machine.”

The laws were designed to prevent the return of saloons, and provide much-needed revenue for unemployment relief, old-age pensions, and public school districts.

While the Pinchot-era alcohol restrictions have been relaxed somewhat in recent years, the legacy of Prohibition remains in every transaction at a six-pack shop or bottle of wine purchased at a state store.

Dr. Aaron Cowan is a professor of history at Slippery Rock University.