the noble experiment

In some parts of the United States prohibition never ended - but how much longer can the remaining "dry" counties stay alcohol-free?

It was known as the noble experiment.

A law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages had been the dream of temperance campaigners in the United States since the early 19th Century.

When prohibition came into force, in 1920, saloons across the country were boarded up and the streets foamed with beer as joyful campaigners smashed kegs and poured bottles down the drain.
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If it takes a town of drunks and people that drink to be prosperous, we are going in the wrong direction”

Matthew Ratliffe Williamsburg resident

But far from ending corruption and vice, as opponents of the "demon rum" had hoped, prohibition led to an unprecedented explosion in criminality and drunkenness.

Thousands of speakeasies selling illegal liquor, often far stronger than legal varieties, sprang up across the country - and gangsters such as Al Capone fought bloody turf wars over the control of newly created bootlegging empires.

National prohibition was finally repealed in 1933, but it never quite died out.

When alcohol regulation was handed back to individual states, many local communities voted to keep the restrictions in place, particularly in the southern Bible Belt.

Today there are still more than 200 "dry" counties in the United States, and many more where cities and towns within dry areas have voted to allow alcohol sales, making them "moist" or partially dry.

The result is a patchwork of dry, wet and moist counties stretching across the south.