Prohibition: Wet Vs. Dry

From the days of early settlement in the late 1800s, the struggle between the “Drys” — those who sought to ban alcohol — and the “Wets” — those who were in favor — shaped the relationship between the Red River border communities of Fargo and Moorhead. The drys had been able to ban alcohol sales in North Dakota from the state’s earliest days by including a prohibition clause in the original state constitution in 1889. The wets on the other hand, prospered on the Minnesota side of the Red River thanks to a pragmatic appreciation of its alcohol driven economy. Colorful characters and rowdy tales of bootleggers, madams, and small town gangs pepper the story of the area’s moral and economic tug-of-war that took place over kegs of beer, bottles of whiskey and barrels of moonshine.