Rum-running Hazards

Wednesday, we left off talking about crime in Vancouver in the 1920's. Another crime that was foremost on people's minds was prohibition. (Prohibition was in effect in Vancouver from 1917 to 1921) By the end of 1918, there was an enquiry held in the city and it produced some remarkable evidence even though many witnesses suffered a loss of memory for many important details.

The provincial liquor commissioner was committed to Oakalla for refusing to answer any questions at all. One prominent Vancouver businessman who was involved blew his brains out with a shot in a New York City hotel. Draymen and teamsters testified they delivered cases of "canned goods" and barrels of "oil" from liquor warehouses to scores of citizens - both notorious and respectable.

Freight cars of legitimately imported liquor were mysteriously spotted on lonely sidings before arriving at their destinations minus a half or two-thirds of their initial loads. There was particular interest in the delivery of 40 cases to a Shaughnessy address. This address was never exactly identified. The manager of the provincial "prescription store" declared that nobody, at any time, ever suggested he sell a pint without a proper medical prescription. Yup. He even said it with a straight face.

The chief of police stated his force was unable to cope with the problem of enforcing prohibition and it was little wonder. In December of 1920, the dry squad raided 108 bootleggers and 18 disorderly houses and collected $9750 in fines. The booze flowed free from Chinatown to the Fraser and from West Point Grey to Boundary. The Sikhs had pint bottles wrapped in their turbans and stood at the entrance to downtown alleys.

The police got a little relief with the inception of government sale of liquor, and of club licenses and beer parlours in 1921 but the bootlegger had already become an established civic institution and remained so.

Being a port city added to the problem. Not because of the provincial laws but due to those by the US. Coal Harbour became the rendezvous point of one of the finest assemblages of adventurers, pirates, skilled seamen, gangsters and murderers the eastern Pacific had ever seen.

"Mother ships" and prohibition blockade runners from Vancouver operated from the Gulf Islands to San Diego. Some of the liquor exporters, distillers and brewers in Vancouver made fortunes.

Not all the exports went by sea. Some liquor crossed the border from Blaine, Washington to Grand Forks, BC by car, pack-train and even mountain climbers. It sounds romantic and exciting, a game not a crime, but the disregard for the law that was nurtured by this 'game' culminated in one of the coast's most celebrated crimes in 1924.

Officials found the fish boat rum-runner Beryl G. adrift off the southern end of Vancouver Island. Captain W.J. Gillis and his son were both aboard, murdered and the cargo gone. Mount Police, Provincial Police and U.S. officials co-operated in a manhunt that eventually resulted in the hanging of the hijackers, Owen "Cannonball" Baker and Harry Sowash on January 14, 1926.

Thanks to the book Vancouver, From Milltown to Metropolis by Alan Morley for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill

From Ballrooms to Birds

In 1929, George C. Reifel built and owned Vancouver's Commodore block on a section of Granville Street known as Theatre Row. It was a ballroom cabaret over retail shops located at street level. A bowling alley is located on the lower level - the Vancouver Vagabond wrote on this bowling alley in a previous entry and there is a scene in the Commodore Bowling Alley in my book, A Little Poison.

The Commodore Ballroom was famous for its dance floor sprung with tires and horsehair with a state-of-the-art stage and acoustics and was served by a freight elevator used to move heavy musical and theatrical equipment.

If you are interested in knowing more about the Commodore Ballroom and its history, watch for a book by Aaron Chapman, the author of Liquor, Lust and the Law: The Story of Vancouver's Legendary Penthouse Nightclub,.

In the 1940s, the Reifel family added the Vogue Theatre and the Studio Theatre. George H. Reifel - George C's son - owned the complex until the 1970s. That was when the City of Vancouver decided to create the 'Granville Mall'. The Reifels sold their property.

I'm not finished telling you about the man who started this all, Henry Reifel. Henry was active in regional community affairs. He was a life governor of the Vancouver General Hospital, a member of the Board of Trade, President of the Nanaimo Pioneers and a member of the Vancouver Pioneers Association. Henry donated land for the original Vancouver Art Gallery on Georgia Street and in 1928, he built a wing on the Ocean View Mausoleum. A charter member of the Point Grey Golf Club, the Reifel patriarch was also one of the organizers of the Eagle Lodge in Nanaimo. Henry Reifel died in Vancouver on September 4, 1945. He was 76 years old.

If you remember, George C. Reifel was the oldest child of Henry and Annie. He worked in the family business but he also owned a 500-acre farm on Westham Island at the mouth of the Fraser River Estuary. George C. was Alberta Distilleries, an Alberta company formed in 1946 with oil and natural gas tycoon, Frank M. McMahon.

The Reifel family have left their impression on my city. Not only with the mansion Casa Mia on Southwest Marine Drive - I found a listing from 2007 where the property was listed for $12 million - and the Commodore block but also with the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary. This sanctuary is one of the richest treasures donated to the preservation of wildlife and the study of nature in North America. It is located just south of Richmond, BC, on Westham Island - a forty-minute drive from downtown Vancouver.

I admit, I started this three part series on the Reifel family because of rumours that they were involved with running alcohol to the States during the prohibition. I don't know if they were and it isn't important. What is important is the mark this family has left on Vancouver and how they contributed to the city's growth.

Once again, I got the information from the Reifel geneology page on Tripod.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Henry Reifel

When I first started to talk about prohibition in Vancouver, I mentioned the Reifel family. Today I am going to tell you a bit more about that family.

Heinrich "Henry" Reifel was born in Speyer, Bavaria, Germany in 1869. At the age of 10, he was engaged in the brewery business in Speyer. In 1886, at the age of 17, Henry and two of his brothers - Jack and Conrad Reifel - immigrated to America.

Immediately, Henry found employment at the Weinhardt Brewery in Portland, Oregon. A year later, he moved to the Chicago Brewery in San Francisco. In 1888, Henry and his brother Jack moved to British Columbia and started a small operation in Brewery Creek (Vancouver) located near 16th and Main. Unfortunately, that operation failed and Jack returned to the US while Henry went to Victoria.

Henry worked for the Victoria Breweries for a while before moving to Nanaimo and working for the Lansdowne Brewery. This operation was owned by a British man by the name of Cawthorne. Reifel left the Lansdowne Brewery to go to work for the Nanaimo Brewery. In 1891, the two breweries merged and Henry became brewmaster and manager. His brother Conrad assisted Henry with these duties.

In 1893, Henry met a young woman from Barkerville. Annie Elizabeth Brown was born May 7, 1873 in San Francisco, California. She and Henry fell in love and married.

Henry and Elizabeth had three children. The first was a boy named George Conrad Reifel, born on May 15, 1892 in Nanaimo. At the age of 16, George was sent to brewing school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Once young George completed his schooling, he went to work for a Victoria Brewery.  The second child, also born in Nanaimo, was Henry Frederick "Harry" Reifel. Harry was born December 3, 1895 and he also went into the family business. The third child was a daughter named Florence. I don't have a birth date for her.

In 1908, along with some associates, Henry Reifel built the Canadian Brewing and Malting Company. Later that company merged with Pilsner Brewing of Cumberland, the Nanaimo plant and the old Vancouver Breweries. This new company operated under the name of Vancouver Breweries.

Now the Reifel family owned three breweries, all quite successful. Vancouver Breweries was later sold to the eastern Canadian brewing company, Carling O'Keefe.

Then World War I started. Canadian men were off fighting overseas and the women were left at home. Many of these women were temperance advocates and a major voting constituency in Canada.  By 1917, they had managed to convince the politicians to bring in prohibition legislature.

I am getting this information from a Tripod website with information on the Reifel family. I will tell you more on Wednesday.

I hope you find the beauty around you.