Jack Daniels fine Missouri sipping whiskey

Jack Daniels fine Missouri sipping whiskey

ST. LOUIS — In 1910, the Jack Daniel Distilling Company left "dry"Tennessee to make its bourbon in St. Louis.

10 years later When Prohibition went nationwide , the company's inventory could only be sold as prescription drugs.

Federal inspectors guarded nearly 1,000 barrels of whiskey at the Jack Daniel's building in St Louis at 3960 Duncan Avenue.

On the night of Dec. 8, 1922, three masked men surrounded government agent Walter Eason . "If you yell or ever testify against us, you'll be bumped off," a gunman told Eason, who was shoved into the basement with fellow guards. They heard the sounds of men stacking boxes and trucks departing.

16 barrels and 118 cases of bourbon disappeared. Although no one was arrested, suspicion pointed to local gangsters; Egan's Rats. Connections have always been important in St Louis. In August 1923, someone methodically siphoned bourbon through 150 feet of hose to waiting trucks. After draining almost 900 barrels they refilled them with water and vinegar, and left one barrel for inspections. The inspector assigned to the address was William J. Kinney, brother of a
state senator and ally of Egan's Rats.

Later, two new inspectors took a drink from a "milked" barrel. Their discovery led to a grand jury investigation of what became known as the"whiskey milking case." Among those targeted was Lemuel Motlow, nephew of the late Jasper "Jack" Daniel. Motlow had just sold his controlling interest in the stash on Duncan Ave.

On March 17, 1924, a drunken Motlow shot and killed a railroad conductor as their train pulled out of Union Station in St Louis. Two months later, Motlow and several alleged co conspirators, including Kinney and former St. Louis circuit clerk Nat Goldstein, were indicted in the milking caper.

In December 1924, Motlow went on trial downtown for murder. His seven lawyers produced a blatantly racist defense that pitted a prominent white Southerner's honor against the testimony of a black porter. It worked.

Kinney, Goldstein and 21 others were convicted in the milking case one year later in Indianapolis, where the case was sent on a change of venue. En route to prison in Leavenworth, Kan., they were cheered at Union Station by 4,000 friends. Motlow never went on trial.

In November 1924, nine key members of the Egan gang were sentenced to long terms in federal prison for a mail robbery at Staunton, Illinois.

Members of the gang who hadn't gone to prison spread across the country. Some of the ex-Rats, led by Fred "Killer" Burke, were suspected of being involved in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Prohibition ended in 1933, Jack Daniel's moved back to Lynchburg, Tenn.

The old Jack Daniels building on Duncan Ave. was torn down in 2005.

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