Around 1923, Boone County Sheriff B. B. Hume had his hands full. Aside from his normal duties as a lawman in a mostly-rural county, Sheriff Hume also ran a successful car dealership in Covington. Car ownership was growing rapidly as prices of the new-fangled machines began to drop, making them attainable by middle-class citizens.
Hume’s dealership was a success; his daily advertisements for his Hudson-Essex dealership ran in several area papers. In addition to the new autos, Hume also took used cars as trade-ins, selling each individually through the classified ads. Motors were all the rage, so much so that the Boone County Recorder ran a regular “Automobile News” column, offering advice for first-time auto owners. There were
helpful tips on maintenance, operation, and courtesy to others who shared the roads, particularly pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicles.
The increasing popularity of cars coincided with a growing criminal element that used them for nefarious means. Cars offered speed, which meant a quick exit from the scene of a crime, or as Sheriff Hume knew, they also could serve as rapid delivery vehicles for moonshiners. Along with his county duties and car sales, Hume was a “dry man”, meaning he was involved in ferreting out moonshine stills in the area. Stills were popping up in all corners of the county, keeping Sheriff Hume and Deputies Utz and Snyder engaged year-round.
One of the largest operations discovered in Boone County was on the property of W.A. Campbell’s property, near the Harvest Home picnic grounds. Acting on a tip, the lawmen staked out the property. Before too long, a large touring car with Ohio tags came down the road, carrying two men, two women and 25 gallons of contraband moonshine. The bootlegging couples were arrested and the lawmen located the source of the “hooch”. A still found on Campbell’s land was larger than they could imagine, with a 100-gallon capacity; it was confiscated and placed on exhibition at the courthouse in Burlington before being locked away on the second floor of the jail.
Scattered reports of the discovery and destruction of more stills continued; each time one was shut down, another appeared. Some stills were small, like Elizabeth Tunning’s in Constance, which held only two gallons, while other moonshiners had higher volume. A 1925 raid on the Robinson farm in Walton revealed a 250-gallon still, 2,600 gallons of mash, and 40 gallons of refined moonshine. Fines were heavy and punishment could be quite serious for offenders, but business continued to boom for years until the 1933 repeal of Prohibition took the profit out of the game.
