The Dry Years: a Township Speakeasy

The township speakeasy, at the strength its source carries: The one speakeasy seated in these townships in any source reached stands in Clay Township, a mile north of Notre Dame on the east side of Juniper Road near Cleveland Road — at the western edge of the ground this build covers, and printed as Clay Township's, not the CDP's own. It is the Talley house: the large red-brick two-story house built by Alfred Talley (born 1809, a printer from Chicago), designated a landmark by the Historic Preservation Commission in June 1975. Dorothy V. Corson's history of the Grotto, working from the St. Joseph County Public Library's newspaper biography clipping file under Talley's name and from the Commission's own information, prints the house's Prohibition chapter whole: in 1923 the house changed hands again, and the new owner "was said to have served home-made wine and Hungarian food to Notre Dame students and other people in his basement during prohibition and thus it became known as a 'speakeasy.' This practice was abruptly stopped when the owner was arrested for bootlegging." The verbs are the source's — was said to have — and this article keeps them: what stands is a documented local tradition with a named house, a dated change of hands and an arrest as its ending, carried by a university-published local history citing the library's clipping file and the preservation commission. No court record of the arrest was reached, the owner's name is not given in the account, and neither is supplied here. The house's earlier chapters — the Haney House years, when it was a favorite stopping place for Notre Dame students — stand in the Story of Granger section and Wealth sections; its dry-years chapter stands here, as the township's one speakeasy of record.

The seized-liquor resale scandal, county frame, boundary-printed: The register's pattern asks for the official who resold the seized liquor, named. The scandal that answers it is the valley's, seated in South Bend and Gary courtrooms, and it is boundary-printed here as the enforcement world these townships lived under — not as a Granger event. Agnes Szabo, raised in South Bend in a saloon and then in a "soft drink parlor" — the period's euphemism for a speakeasy — ran whiskey wholesale between Chicago and South Bend in a Hudson sedan. When federal agents arrested her in 1921, she answered with the system itself: she had paid up to $2,700 in cash for 135 cases of confiscated liquor — liquor seized in raids and resold to her by the very officers and city judges charged with enforcing the law — and she named names, rattling officials across the region (the "Gary Bootleg Ring" and "Gary City Officials Divide Seized Booze" headlines of January–March 1923, in the Richmond Palladium and the Indianapolis Times, both reached through Hoosier State Chronicles). Federal Judge Albert B. Anderson, presiding, called her "an extraordinary criminal"; she claimed 75 percent of South Bend was in on the bootlegging trade — her claim, printed as a claim — and in 1923 she declared herself through with the business, after which the family's move to a rural farm and resumption of operations drew Judge Anderson's injunction.

The bootlegging economy at this ground's true size: What the dry years were, on this ground, is now statable whole: a farm township on the Chicago–South Bend whiskey road's home end, with one documented basement speakeasy serving the university's students across the township line, under a county enforcement system whose own seized stock leaked back into the trade at wholesale — the corruption documented at the county seat, the township's share of it one house's tradition. No Granger still, raid or dry prosecution enters the record reached, and the searches are printed with the finding: the Corson/clipping-file tradition, the state history blog's Hoosier State Chronicles sweep, and the banked leg's own Chapman/Howard and press sweeps before them.

Sources:

1. Dorothy V. Corson, "A Cave of Candles," ch. 4 (University of Notre Dame, nd.edu) — the Talley/Chirhart house: Alfred Talley, builder; landmark status June 1975 (Historic Preservation Commission); the 1923 owner, the basement wine and Hungarian food, the "speakeasy" name, the bootlegging arrest; citing the SJCPL newspaper biography clipping file and the Commission.
2. Indiana Historical Bureau, Indiana History Blog, "South Bend" (blog.history.in.gov) — Agnes Szabo: the soft-drink parlor upbringing; the Chicago–South Bend runs; the $2,700 paid for 135 cases of confiscated liquor resold by officers and city judges; the 1921 arrest and the naming of names; Judge Albert B. Anderson; the 1923 renunciation and the farm injunction; newspapers via Hoosier State Chronicles — Richmond Palladium, 15 and 25 January 1923; Indianapolis Times, 16 March and 2 April 1923; Lake County Times, 11 December 1922.
3. Crime leg (banked) — the dry-years negative at search strength and GAP-CRIME-5, which this article executes; the Harris Township negative stands as banked.
4. Settler remaining for a full township raid sweep: the South Bend Tribune archive 1920–1933 read by township name (SJCPL full-text door / MPHPL film), as the register specifies.