It was an ordinary day. Reading a story in "Uncharted Lancaster" that told of how the city of Lancaster kept the beer flowing during Prohibition when it was illegal to do so. Seems that one Beer Baron ran a 3,000-foot long suds filled hose through the sewers of Lancaster! That Beer Baron happened to be a relative of the neighbor who lived in the house behind me when my family lived on Janet Ave. in Manheim Township and my neighbor lived on Pleasure Road. We were good friends, as we are today, who had sons who both went to Manheim Township High School and both played on the baseball team. Matter of fact, I would often visit him at his home and ask about all the neat beer steins and beer paraphernalia that lined the mantel above his living room fireplace. Dave Rieker was a good friend whose relatives ran the Penn Star Brewery Company in nearby Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He often would show me different objects that lined his mantel and we would talk about Prohibition and how it affected Lancaster County. It was on January 17, 1920 when the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution went into effect. It prohibited the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes." For years those who were part of the temperance movement worked diligently to stop the flow of alcohol, including that made by Beer Baron Rieker who operated a brewery on West King Street near downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
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| Rieker Brewery on the right with offices on left. (Lancaster History collection) |
Then, when prohibition arrived, the Reiker family sold control of the Rieker's Brewery to Max Hassel, a mobster out of Reading, Pennsylvania who shipped his suds nearly 3000 feet through the sewers of the city of Lancaster with the aid of two spelunking little people. To keep the appearance of having Rieker's closed, trucks needed to pick up the illegal beer somewhere other than near the brewery. Mr. Hassel devised a neat plan to run a 2 to 3-inch hard rubber hose through the sewers of Lancaster to a nearby abandoned warehouse. To do the job, "sewer rats" were needed.  |
| Interior of the Brewery (Lancaster History collection) |
These were skilled men who specialized in getting into and through tight spaces. Hassel hired at least two little people whom he bought to Lancaster from New Jersey. These men started at the Brewery by climbing a wall and through a transom where they eventually worked their way down the West King Street sewer. They then dragged the hose four blocks when they suddenly dropped into a pipe that was flooded. The gushing waters caused them to crash into metal grates where they remained pined by the rising sewage. They nearly drowned before the sewage lessened. Before long they pressed on, underground, to the Water Street sewer, where they finally rented an abandoned warehouse near the intersection of Water and Orange Streets. Wasn't long before the mobsters had a tapping-of-the-first keg party at the warehouse, but the beer came out scalding hot and weak as tea. Back to the sewer they went to retrace the hose. Seems that the Manhattan Laundry at 229-231 West King Street was emptying scalding hot water into the sewer over the tube that carried the beer. That in turn boiled the alcohol out of the beer. Mr. Hassel had a force-pump installed at the Brewery to speed the beer past the hot water and the 3,000-foot long pipeline operated profitably for several years. Then on March 17, 1932, when city employee Andy Flick found the hose during an inspection at King and Pine Streets, the gig was up. Sections of the famous hose were carried off by souvenir hunters who sawed off chunks turning them into desk pieces, paperweights and ashtrays. Rieker's soon went out of business and was torn down to make way for Crystal Park. But, perhaps a few pieces of that pipe may have found their way to the mantel of Dave's fireplace. I guess I will never know, since we both have moved to different locations since that time. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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