The Big Picture

Don’t be fooled by the innocent appearance of these automobiles and their passengers awaiting transport to Erie, Pa., on the 272-ft. ferry Keystone.  

It’s 1929, Prohibition in the United States is in full swing, and ferries like Keystone — and her predecessors Erie and Dover — are a primary vehicle for illegal rum-running from Lake Erie’s northern to southern coasts.

These well-dressed men and women — holding the hand of a child, no less —hardly fit our modern-day notions of liquor smugglers. But ordinary people found creative ways to transport booze and establish cross-border bootlegging relationships via ferries like this one.

False floorboards and secret trunk compartments in these automobiles — the Keystone could accommodate 80, along with 1,000 passengers — made for limited-quantity, hard-to-detect plunderage. Baby buggies were modified to transport liquor instead of infants, and crates appearing to contain fresh food and beverages for the galley were double-stocked for round trips. Prohibition in Ontario had ended two years earlier, making it easy for passengers to stock up for the southern leg of their journey.

Ferries and fishing tugs could shuttle nearly unchecked from Port Dover to Erie in the early days of Prohibition. Law enforcement was more focused on ports in Detroit — where the menacing “Purple Gang” controlled smuggling across the Detroit River to Windsor — as well as Buffalo and Cleveland.

This was Keystone’s final season. Erie and Dover had been destroyed by fire the previous year, and mechanical failure ended Keystone’s trips. Her owner, Detroit businessman William Nicholson, repaired and returned her to service in 1931, but, with the Depression on, the days of Prohibition were numbered, as was Keystone’s bootlegging career.