Rum-running

In the Appalachian United States, for example, the demand for moonshine was at an all-time high in the 1920s, but an era of rampant bootlegging in dry areas continued into the 1970s.

[5] It is believed[citation needed] that the term bootlegging originated during the American Civil War of 1861–1865, when soldiers would sneak liquor into army camps by concealing pint bottles within their boots or beneath their trouser legs.

[7][8] The term rum-running was current by 1916,[9] and was used during the Prohibition era in the United States (1920–1933), when ships from Bimini in the western Bahamas transported cheap Caribbean rum to Florida speakeasies.

[10] Industrial-scale smuggling flowed both ways across the Canada–United States border at different points in the early twentieth century, largely between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan.

Again, this illegal international trade undermined the support for prohibition in the receiving country, and the American version ended (at the national level) in 1933.

With the start of prohibition, Captain McCoy began bringing rum from Bimini and the rest of the Bahamas into south Florida through Government Cut.

The rum-running business was very good, and McCoy soon bought a Gloucester knockabout schooner named Arethusa at auction and renamed her Tomoka.

He installed a larger auxiliary, mounted a concealed machine gun on her deck, and refitted the fish pens below to accommodate as much contraband as she could hold.

She became one of the most famous of the rum-runners, along with his two other ships hauling mostly Irish and Canadian whiskey as well as other fine liquors and wines to ports from Maine to Florida.

The Rum Line was extended to a 12-mile (19 km) limit by an act of the United States Congress on April 21, 1924, which made it harder for the smaller and less seaworthy craft to make the trip.

Rum-runners often made the trip through Canada via the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence Seaway and down the west coast to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The French islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, located south of Newfoundland, were an important base used by well-known smugglers, including Al Capone, Savannah Unknown, and Bill McCoy.

With that much competition, the suppliers often flew large banners advertising their wares and threw parties with prostitutes on board their ships to draw customers.

These high-speed boats were often luxury yachts and speedboats fitted with powerful aircraft engines, machine guns, and armor plating.

[12] Rum-runners often kept cans of used engine oil handy to pour on hot exhaust manifolds in case a screen of smoke was needed to escape the revenue ships.

Alcohol was legally exported on large ships as tax-free produce via ports like Hamburg, Tallinn, Kiel and particularly the Free City of Danzig.

Similar to the Rum Row near the U.S. coast, these ships usually did not leave international waters and the alcohol was clandestinely loaded onto smaller boats that illegally brought it into the destination countries.