{"id":356,"date":"2014-08-15T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-15T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/?p=356"},"modified":"2015-01-09T16:20:35","modified_gmt":"2015-01-09T21:20:35","slug":"moonshine-waterfalls-near-pittsburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/08\/15\/moonshine-waterfalls-near-pittsburgh\/","title":{"rendered":"Moonshine waterfalls near Pittsburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"May <\/a>
May 7, 1958: Authorities spill gallons of moonshine off the porch of a Pittsburgh home. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Nov. <\/a>
Nov. 11, 1949: Gibsonia patrolman James. W. Homison and Chief Ed Sherwood raided a four-man, 13-still bootleg factory. (The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div>
\"June <\/a>
June 14, 1964: How does this relate to moonshine? Brady, a friendly Great Dane was to watch out for revenue agents. Instead, she greeted agent Harold Silber with a pawshake. (The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"May <\/a>
May 22, 1958: Authorities dump a barrel out the window of an abandoned building used as a moonshine distillery. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Sept. <\/a>
Sept. 25, 1968: Robert R. Ridley of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division displays automatic weapons used in a moonshine operation. (Anthony Kaminski\/The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Feb. <\/a>
Feb. 21, 1963: The aftermath of a Hill District moonshine raid. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Sept. <\/a>
Sept. 9, 1955: Allegheny County police dump out moonshine they found in the thick woods of Richland Township. (The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Oct. <\/a>
Oct. 23, 1955: An Alcohol Tax Unit agent uses an axe to dump moonshine whisky, which sold for about $1 a pint with no tax. (The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"June <\/a>
June 7, 1958: Authorities dump a giant moonshine cocktail out the window of the former Cinderella Gardens in Millvale. (The Pittsburgh Press) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

When a moonshine bust was to be made in the mid-20th century, distillers could be certain of two things.<\/p>\n

First, the investigating law enforcement agency would make an example of them, flipping or hacking apart barrels and creating glorious waterfalls of mash.<\/p>\n

Second, any and all media members \u2014 especially newspaper photographers \u2014 were guaranteed to be in tow.<\/p>\n

Decades later, the mutual excitement surrounding one of these busts is obvious on policemen\u2019s faces and in a published photograph\u2019s angle or caption.<\/p>\n

Moonshine was illegal then and remains so today because its makers don\u2019t pay state taxes. Moreover, health departments cannot inspect their operations, an obvious health hazard.<\/p>\n

As George Swetnam of The Pittsburgh Press wrote in the 1970s, \u201c\u2026beginning in 1862, during Civil War days, came the Department of Revenue, and moonshiners have been in business ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Pittsburgh, the brews were generally made in rural areas around or outside Allegheny County, \u201cwhere the smell doesn\u2019t bother anyone,\u201d as city police inspector William Moore said in 1975.<\/p>\n

They were then brought into city speakeasies and other illegal drinking locales; this was still the case long after the end of prohibition. The busts gradually declined in number in the second half of the 20th century \u2014 perhaps because of the negative press examples, but more likely because there were just better jobs to be had then.<\/p>\n

By the early 1980s, only a dozen Pittsburgh-area moonshine busts had been made in five years. Drugs like cocaine and eventually methamphetamine, considered under state and federal law to be more dangerous than alcohol, became the more common source of illegal income and thus a cause for more arrests than was moonshine.<\/p>\n

And at the end of the 1980s,\u00a0according to the Associated Press<\/a>, moonshine-making seemed more a problem\u00a0inside\u00a0<\/em>Pennsylvania prisons than outside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a moonshine bust was to be made in the mid-20th century, distillers could be certain of two things.<\/p>\n

Look at the picturesMoonshine waterfalls near Pittsburgh<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":4640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[946],"tags":[961,974,1214,979,1212,1025,1213],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/tumblr_nab9wkFRHp1rr5swxo4_12801.jpg?fit=1280%2C1047&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8227,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2017\/10\/18\/the-ku-klux-klan-and-a-family-photo-album\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":0},"title":"The Ku Klux Klan and a family photo album","date":"October 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"During a visit to his parent\u2019s home in Bridgeville this past summer, Paul Ludwick sat in a living room and pulled open the worn cover of an overstuffed photo album. He hoped the pictures placed in the crinkled pages nine decades ago would answer a few questions about his grandparents,\u2026","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Digs.KKK003.jpg?fit=1200%2C952&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2199,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2012\/12\/18\/pittsburgh-press-reporter-maddy-ross\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":1},"title":"Pittsburgh Press reporter Maddy Ross","date":"December 18, 2012","format":"gallery","excerpt":"Everyone starts somewhere and Pittsburgh journalist Madelyn Ross is no exception.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/tumblr_messn9woEX1rr5swxo1_500.jpg?fit=500%2C707&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":841,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/03\/21\/pittsburgh-from-the-air\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":2},"title":"Pittsburgh from the air","date":"March 21, 2014","format":"gallery","excerpt":"Pittsburgh\u2019s skyline is one of the most photogenic in the country.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/tumblr_n2rdpa9BUd1rr5swxo3_1280.jpg?fit=1000%2C644&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6011,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2015\/10\/21\/who-wouldnt-want-to-take-a-chopper-from-pittsburgh-downtown-to-airport\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":3},"title":"Who wouldn’t want to take a chopper from downtown Pittsburgh to the airport?","date":"October 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Both companies called Pittsburgh Airways were doomed to fail, for different reasons.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"Celebration of the opening of the heliport on the Mon at the foot of Wood Street. 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