Markets in Everything, Prohibition Era: Cow Shoes
From a newspaper article in 1922 titled "[Moon]Shiners Wear 'Cow Shoes'":
"A new method of evading prohibition agents was revealed here today by A.L. Allen, state prohibition enforcement director, who displayed what he called a "cow shoe" as the latest thing front the haunts of moonshiners.
The cow shoe is a strip of metal to which is tacked a wooden block carved to resemble the hoof of a cow, which may be strapped to the human foot. A man shod with a pair of them would leave a trail resembling that of a cow.
The shoe found was picked up near Port Tampa where a still was located some time ago. It will be sent to the prohibition department at Washington. Officers believe the inventor got his idea from a Sherlock Holmes story in which the villain shod his horse with shoes the imprint of which resembled those of a cow's hoof."
HT: Kottke.org via Fred Dent
20 Comments:
This is great!
What a colossal waste prohibitions are.
What a colossal waste prohibitions are.
I don't know, Methinks. Out of Prohibition, we get these cow shoes. Oh, and don't forget the tradition of carrying alcohol in brown paper bags. There was also the invention of the hip-flask. :-P
Hey, what's a little bloodshed if you get a hip-flask out of it, eh?
:)
if there's one thing i hate, it's a drunken cow.
I am going to guess that a major endorsement deal will soon be announced by the makers of cow shoes.
Tim, Tickle, Popcorn and Jesse, from Discovery's Moonshiners, could be walking taller, very shortly.
Discovery TV's Moonshiners.
Morganovich, that's no way to talk about Nancy Pelosi!
methinks-
i was think more of rosanne barr.
The difference being?
Imagine the Feds bash in a bar door, push people against the wall, frisk everyone and put the proprietor in prison.
Expensive legal bills for everyone else.
Did I mention they were smoking pot, not drinking alcohol?
methinks-
if they took turns sitting on you, i suspect the difference would be readily apparent.
Morganovich, thank you for that image. I will never forgive you.
hey, you asked....
Now, I've got those two in rotation with Moochelle Obama. A pox on you!
Well...this conversation got weird fast.
uh huh....
Well, JM, I expect a conversation which starts with cow shoes is probably going to get strange pretty quickly.
seems like it was just the other day that Morg was pontificating from on high at just how annoyed he got at aimless "prattling" in CD.....
guess he got over it...!!!
;-)
larry-
expressions of humor are not the same thing as repeated expressions of ignorance and inability to think clearly.
i hope one day, you can tell the difference.
Morg - to each his own guy... I found your interlude to be grade A "prattle".
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