New Preston during Prohibition

Village Without Law So Gin Joint Owners Operate Wide Openly

New Preston, With Only 300 People, Has Six Speakeasies and One Moonshine Plant. Cedar Lodge Notorious Place. Cook Provides “Pizen.”

With six speakeasies operating at full blast and a moonshiner having to work overtime to keep the places supplied with the poisonous nose paint, the somewhat isolated village of New Preston, with its 300 inhabitants, is one of the wettest places for its size in the state.

With the authorities not bothering to butt in, it begins to look as though Bill McKay’s loud boast of having “pull” means something, after all.

In the outside world, Bill McKay, whose bragging of having a “drag” with the big shots of the prohibition forces is getting on the nerves of the better element of the village, would be just another joint owner. But in New Preston, where he conducts the notorious Cedar Lodge, on the banks of Lake Waramaug, he is of some importance, since he owns a dozen houses and has a sock in the bank.

Swanky Speakie

Cedar Lodge is one of the speakeasies, although it masquerades under a swanky name. According to reports, the place is the Mecca for males and females looking for the proper setting for a hot party.

There is plenty of booze dispensed at the lodge and some riotous orgies have been held there since the start of the summer. For those who have drunk too much and for couples seeking to be by themselves, where they can do things that are banned in public, there are private rooms. Some of them are boudoirs and, in their downy beds, many couples unmarried have spent entire nights.

The Herald was told also that complaints have been made by men of having been “rolled” in the place while in a drunken stupor. From the reports of the villagers, McKay’s place is one where everything goes. There are no women kept there, but the men who bring their own are taken care of.

Liquor flows like water and some nights, when liquor-sodden couples start to let loose, their disturbing noises echo through the village, to let those who go to bed early know that whoopee is being made or has been made at Cedar Lodge.

Never Knocked Off

McKay’s place has never been raided by the state officers. It has been visited, but the troopers have never been successful in grabbing any booze.

According to those who heard McKay’s broadcasting, he pats himself on the back and is not the least bit backward about telling that he has too much influence among the powers that be in the prohibition forces to get caught with any liquor when his place is visited by troopers.

New Preston has no constables or law enforcers of its own and the village is, in reality, a community without law and with only a little order.

Other places aside from McKay’s are the thirst parlor of Mrs. Clayton Ross, in the rear of the post office; Couch’s garage, where tonsil oil as well as lubricants for machinery is sold; Earl Johnson’s boarding houses; Wellington’s Terrace; and the gin parlor known as the place of “The Lady of the Flowers.” All of them are engaged in selling booze.

Mrs. Ross has been seen to heed the call of patrons at an early hour in the morning, serving them drinks while clad in a nightgown covered by a bungalow apron. Johnson’s boarding house, which is located high on a hill, is a hard spot to reach and several machines have turned over when their tipsy drivers were unable to guide them properly.

Quick Turnover

Sylvester Cook is the moonshiner who provides the snake oil for the joints. Cook, who brags that his still is where it will never be located by prohibition agents, makes his liquor in the morning and it is on sale in the afternoon, which is likely one of the reasons why those who have imbibed some of the stuff have become insanely drunk.

Sylvester’s manufactured product is little more than poison, but he sells it cheaply enough, although by the time it reaches the consumer, the price a shot has been jacked up so high that it passes as “good stuff.”

Many of the womenfolk in New Preston are flighty and some of the whoopee parties that take place in parked cars on seldom-traveled roads and in the woods are spicy. The Herald was told that a chap has only to have a bottle of liquor and a car and he is all set for a good time, if he gets in with the fast-stepping lassies and matrons of the community.

The village is a wide-open place, untouched by the law that frowns on whoopee activities in other communities.

Selectmen Arthur Titus and George Couch might be expected to make use of the power of their offices and at least put an end to the booze selling in the village, but they appear to have other interests.

New Preston, situated close to the beautiful body of water known as Lake Waramaug, attracts many summer visitors because of its natural offerings as a resort, but with Sylvester Cook’s “pizen” available without any red tape, it looks as though not all the visitors are attracted by the natural wonders.

Source

Originally published in The Herald, date unknown, circa 1920s.

From the collection of the Gunn Historical Museum in Washington, Connecticut.

Cedar Lodge was located near the foot of Lake Waramaug, close to the present-day Washington Town Beach and the intersection of West Shore Road, East Shore Road, and Flirtation Avenue.

Today, the foot of Lake Waramaug feels peaceful and unhurried. A century ago, this small neighborhood appears to have been at the center of New Preston’s Prohibition-era activity.

Bill McKay operated Cedar Lodge and owned a dozen houses in the village. Today, we own The Flirt and two additional houses once owned by McKay, all within the neighborhood described in this article.

Local stories also tell of bottles being left after dark at the first storm drain on Flirtation Avenue, directly across from The Flirt.

The houses remain. The landscape feels quieter. The stories are still here.