By William Harris Staff reporter

Next time you check out an old book from any Lakeshore-area library, be careful: you may be holding crime scene evidence.

Libraries were just one of the hundreds of different places bootleggers once used to hide liquor in Lakeshore, with whisky bottles and even shot glasses concealed within hollowed-out books. Two such books are currently on display at the Maidstone Bicentennial Museum, and museum staffers are hoping to get their hands on more.

Victoria Beaulieu from the Maidstone Historical Society said last week that the museum is on a quest for any paraphernalia to illustrate local involvement in the illegal liquor trade between Canada and the United States during the 1920s and early 1930s.

During the 1920-1933 prohibition era in the United States, Canadian breweries and distilleries flourished on sales to visiting Americans, or on sales that were eventually exported illegally into the US. American gangsters made frequent “business” trips across the border to work out deals to import Canadian beer and whiskey; mob kingpin Al Capone is known to have visited Belle River and Puce on several occasions.

Prohibition was legislated in Ontario in 1916 and existed until 1924, when beer sales were allowed to resume. Prohibition was completely repealed in Ontario in 1927, when the Liquor Control Board of Ontario was established.

Cooper’s town

The museum already possesses two liquor cases disguised to look like books, a homemade still several 1920s-era Hiram Walker’s whiskey bottles.

They are on the lookout for any photos, newspaper articles or other items that could be connected to local rumrunning, Beaulieu said.

Equally important are the stories she hopes local residents who lived through the prohibition era can share.

“There used to be a stigma attached to it, because it was a crime,” she said of the rumrunning activities that used to have roots in Lakeshore. “But today it’s history. People want to know about this.”

James Cooper, one of Canada’s foremost liquor barons, set up shop in Belle River and contributed immensely to the growth of the town, Beaulieu said.

Using liquor trade cash, Cooper paid for the construction of Belle River’s first high school (now Royal Canadian Legion Branch 399), hydro lines, water mains, the steeple of St. Simon & St. Jude Church and other community projects.

“Belle River really is a result of rumrunning,” Beaulieu said.  

By William Harris Staff reporter

The next phase of County Rd. 22’s expansion begins this summer, and the provincial and federal governments have agreed to pick up the tab.

Officials from all three levels of government came together last week to announce the rebuilding of the County Rd. 22 bridge over Pike Creek, the widening of the Patillo Rd./County Rd. 22 intersection and, wrapping up in 2010, the expansion of County Rd. 22 from two to four lanes between Pike Creek and Lakeshore Blvd.

No dollar figure has yet been attached to the project, but Mayor Tom Bain said estimates from Lakeshore put the price tag at around $22-million.

The full cost of the three-phase expansion, which will be known once tenders are awarded, will be shared by the provincial and federal governments.

“That makes this announcement so much sweeter,” Bain said.

“We’re doing handstands for joy here.”

Bain said traffic congestion on County Rd. 22 has been a headache for successive Lakeshore councils for over six years.

“Our phones have been ringing off the wall over this,” he told reporters. “There have been 600 accidents on this road over the past six years...this safety problem is going to be, in essence, solved.”

Funding will be provided through the $300-million Let’s Get Windsor-Essex Moving program. County engineer Tom Bateman said tenders went out as soon as the announcement was made and will be awarded in late July, at which time construction work will begin.

The widening of the Patillo Rd. intersection and the Pike Creek bridge will finally open up the already-expanded portion of County Rd. 22 in front of Hiram Walker’s distillery. Bain said municipal officials had been told not to make any move on either project until the funding announcement could be made.

MP Jeff Watson remarked that the timing of the funding hadn’t been tied to the announcement of a new border crossing made earlier last month.

“We duly consider each project in its own right,” he said, adding that County Rd. 22’s high traffic volumes make it one of the most important corridors in Essex County.