Sheriff Gets Biggest Still of Year May 1931, Henderson Co. TX

Athens Weekly Review
Thursday May 21, 1931

Sheriff Gets Biggest Still of Year in One of Three Raids Tuesday

Three raids against violators of the Prohibition law were staged within
eighteen hours Tuesday by members of Sheriff Joe Baker’s force. One
of the raids netted Sheriff Baker the largest still he has captured since
taking office on January 1st. It was the eighth still he and his deputies
have captured during the five months he has been in office.
In the first of the three raids, Sheriff Baker and Deputy K. C. Davis found
thirteen gallons of beer and a large number of bottles in the woods on a
farm near Stockard about noon Tuesday. The owner who had been at the
scene shortly before the officers arrived had been making preparations to
bottle his beer. He fled at the approach of the law enforcers.
While Sheriff Baker and Deputy Davis were in the Stockard section
Deputies Ollie Parrott and “Boss” Cheery were making preparations
for a raid that was to net the Sheriff’s department the largest still of the
year’s work thus far. The deputies drove to an abandoned coal mine
between Athens and Malakoff Tuesday afternoon and discovered the
big still which they promptly cut to pieces, saving the bottom of the still
and the “worm” as evidence. A white man was arrested and a search of
his premises not far from the mine led to the capture of nineteen quarts
of “Hagg & Hagg” bottled-in-bond whiskey and twenty-four bottles of beer.
The owner of the still and liquor has not made bond at noon today and was
being held in the Henderson county jail.
The third raid of the ay in which Sheriff Baker and Deputies Davis and Cherry
were the participants, was at a house on the outskirts of Trinidad last night.
The officers found 164 bottles of beer in the residence which was occupied
by several Negro families. The beer was found under a negro’s bed and the
occupant of the bed, a Negro man, was lodged in the county jail here to answer
charges of possession of liquor for the purpose of sale. In describing the house
where the liquor was found Sheriff Baker said this morning that each of three
rooms in the house was occupied by a Negro family and that the fourth room
was used as a warehouse room for the intoxicants. Enroute back to Athens
following the raid, Sheriff Baker stopped off in Trinidad to take into custody a
Negro and a white man who had imbibed too freely. They were brought to
Athens and placed in jail.
Local authorities believe that the capture of the big still might eventually
lead to the indictment of a white man of the Malakoff and Trinidad section
whose operations in violation of the Prohibition law have been well known to
many residents here. Although the details of the evidence obtained was not
divulged, authorities here hope to prove that he was the real owner of the big
still found in the deserted mine.

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