Kansas was the first state in the nation to outlaw the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in 1881 and remained a technically dry state until 1948. Kansas still has not ratified the 21st amendment that ended prohibition. Liquor by the drink was not legally available until 1987, and one of the states attorney generals even tried to ban the airborne sale of liquor in passenger planes using Kansas air space, his contention being that if you don't want it enforced then get rid of it. I remember well some of the vehicles of the 40's that were supposedly bootleggers cars. They seemed to either migrate to the large Buick's, and Packard's while several did quite well posing as traveling salesmen and using the "salesman coupe" that was about half trunk. Sometimes the dead giveaway that all was not right would be the auto that ran around with the rear end up in the air during the week and then suddenly set quite level over the week end. Some however managed to escape notice by making sure they were always carrying a load of either whiskey or water. Fuller Brush and Watkins Home products did well in those days. The states providing the contraband were not at all cooperative with the Kansas law enforcement trying to eradicate the local menace. It was actually more of a cat and mouse game than a real law enforcement effort. Many felt that it was none of the governments business whether you were having a drink now and then, but this was one of the few times that religion and organized crime combined forces to keep an unpopular law on the books. As a result the churches got a black eye, and organized crime got their national foothold and made fortunes.
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