Sometimes legends are based on a grain of truth and sometimes a foundation of fables, and in the raucous years of secret knocks, speakeasies and moonshine, the story about a house just north of Victoria haunted by spirits contained a little of both.
An article from the Heritage News, pulled from the De Soto Press, which in turn probably came from a Prohibition-era version of the same newspaper, tells the sordid tale of a “beautiful rock bungalow” that many believed was haunted until they learned it dealt in spirits of a different kind.
The bungalow “turned out to be a real distillery,” the article said.
Although, the bungalow appeared to be empty, neighbors’ attention was drawn to the house because numerous trucks and automobiles frequently stopped at the place.
“Many people passing there would inquire why so nice a house was empty and would invariably be told ‘the house was haunted,’" the article said.
An Officer Baker and Sheriff Brady weren’t fooled, however, and raided a frame house on the property where a large still with a capacity to make 250 gallons of hooch a day was found.
“The bootleggers lived…in the rock bungalow but distilled in the frame house. There were two men and two women, supposedly their wives, who operated the still,” according to the article.
The plant (still) had been so well constructed that when the sheriff and the officers went to remove it, they had to take it apart piece by piece, the reporter wrote.
“Along with the still was found 15,000 gallons of mash, ready for distillation, but no liquor was found. It had evidently been sold or hauled away,” according to the article.
Two men were arrested, but no one in the neighborhood knew them, and they used aliases when interviewed by police, the article stated.
“They were taken to Hillsboro and locked up, but the women located in the bungalow were not molested (bothered) as no liquor was found in that house.”
According to the article, the bungalow was originally built by a doctor and once belonged to a Mr. and Mrs. A. O. White. At the time of the raid, a St. Louis real estate firm was managing the property, and the owner had not been determined.
There might have been other homes like it in the area, the reporter went on to say.
“There are several other houses with spooks lurking about in this locality and perhaps the spooks are (spiritus frumenti). Who can tell?”
