A wet farewell to ‘demon’ liquor

June 30, 1919: Just before national prohibition went into effect, banning the sale of alcoholic beverages except for export, the patrons of the city’s bars lived it up together one last time, The Times reported under the headline “Jolly End Is Demon’s, Farewells to Booze Said in Los Angeles.”

“Los Angeles went dry last night after the ‘wettest’ day in its history,” the newspaper said. All over the city, people stocked up on liquor “and carried away arm-loads, trunk-loads, automobile-loads of 14 per cent. goods of every description.”

Nowhere was the scene more dramatic than at Jack Doyle’s, a bar in Vernon that billed itself as the world’s biggest saloon. Sixty bartenders were on hand for the last night, when the business was “jammed inside with nearly a thousand men,” the newspaper reported.