Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1987
Abstract
Wets and drys freely exchanged epithets as Kansas began the twentieth century. They agreed only upon the fact of mass violations of prohibition. Kansas was dry in law and had local option in reality; and cities like Wichita, Kansas City, and Leavenworth had open saloons that conducted business on main streets in full public view. Kansas had a vast amount of "wet" territory, but estimates varied on exactly how much. One report of the Kansas Temperance Union stated that two thirds of the 129 cities and towns surveyed in 1900 ignored prohibition laws.1
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly [GPQ 7 (Fall 1987): 219-231] . Copyright 1987 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.