Officers Capture Still Before It's Ever Been Fired Up, March 16, 1925

Officers Capture Still Before It Has Chance to Run. . . New Outfit Ready for Business with 120 Gallon Beer Capacity—Found in Back Swamp Township—2 Others Found in Rennert Township—Quantity of Beer and Half-Gallon Liquor Found

Capturing a still after it has been in operation for some time is not a very unusual thing for Robeson count officers, but the capture Thursday of an outfit that had never been warmed up pleased the officers very much.

Centering their raid on a section of Back Swamp township near the Back Swamp Baptist church, the officers did not have to search long before a copper still which would easily hold more than a hundred gallons of beer was found. Preparations had been made to start a “run” very soon as wood had been cut and hauled. No one was at the place.

Near Rennert the same afternoon the officers captured two more stills. One had the beer already placed in it and would have been in operation within a few hours. Three barrels of beer, about 150 gallons, were near the outfit and a half-gallon fruit jar of the finished product was also found nearby. This outfit consisted of a tin tub and a copper worm. About a half-mile from this place another whiskey-making outfit was found. This one was old and very dilapidated, not having been used in some time. There was nothing around that showed signs of it having been in operation for several months.

Deputy Sheriffs W.C. Britt and J.H. Barrington and Rural Policemen Mark Page and Melton Ivey conducted the first raid, and Sheriff B.F. McMillan, Deputies Britt and Ivey, the second.

From the front page of The Robesonian, Lumberton, N.C., March 16, 1925

newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn84026483/1925-03-16/ed-1/seq-1/