Little Chicago: Liquor Smuggling During (or After?) Prohiibition
Junen Percy Kyllo: 1921-1964
Loren Harley Kyllo: 1924-1997
Parents: Pearl Peterson (my dad’s older sister) and Joseph Kyllo
Prohibition started in 1920 and lasted until 1933. It failed
to wean Americans from alcohol—it just turned everyone who liked a beer or a
mixed drink into a lawbreaker. Regular people desperate to make a little extra
money became criminals by providing drinkers with the liquor they wanted.
According to family lore, my paternal first cousins Junen and Loren Kyllo got
into the illegal liquor trade, distributing hooch smuggled to tiny Hanska,
Minnesota by Chicago mobsters.
My father regaled my brother with stories about his nephews
and their ingenious money-making plan. The pair were the sons of dad’s sister
Pearl Peterson and her husband Joseph Kyllo. Pearl was sixteen years older than
my father, so Junen and Loren were only four and seven years younger than my
dad. Being so close in age and living
near one another, dad’s nephews were also his good friends as they grew into young
adults.
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| Loren, Juhl and Junen at the Peterson farm, 1930s |
At some point in the 1930s, Junen and Loren went into
business together, running an auto repair shop in Hanska. The car repair
business wasn’t exactly a money-maker, especially in the 1930s in rural
Minnesota. Car ownership among poorer people was still pretty new at that
point, with some people still using horses for farming and transportation. It’s
probably not all that surprising that car repair became the secondary
business—illegal liquor sales was the real moneymaker, and the car repair
business was a great way to launder the illicit profits.
Supposedly, mobsters from Chicago would drive down a couple
times a year to deliver the liquor. In the fall, they would stop off at my
great-uncle Jacob’s house after making their deliveries so they could get in a
little duck hunting in the sloughs near his property. They’d park their cars in
his farmyard, getting out in their snazzy suits and shiny shoes, swapping into hunting
clothes. They’d also trade their handguns and shoulder holsters for shotguns,
and would head out. They’d pay Uncle Jacob with booze when they returned to
their cars with their trophies, once again changing clothes before starting
their trip back to Illinois. He found them to be pretty pleasant fellows.
The Chicago connection explains why the Kyllo repair shop
became known in Hanska as “Little Chicago”, a sly local reference to the real
business conducted on the down-low.
When I first heard this story, I thought it made perfect sense.
Then I looked at Junen and Loren’s ages during Prohibition—they were only 12
and 9 when Prohibition ended! So did my father lie? That seems unlikely,
especially since my brother remembered that someone who was preparing a
centennial book about Hanska came out to interview my dad about Little Chicago,
thinking he’d be a good source of information since the Kyllos died in the
1960s. My dad refused, apparently reluctant to besmirch his cousins’ reputation
in print, even though the story was common knowledge.
Was it really Junen and Loren’s father Joseph who ran Little
Chicago? He was farming at the time, and then moved to Minneapolis where he and
my father’s sister Pearl both worked for Honeywell. I don’t think he had time
to run a second business. Besides, I have the photo of Junen and Loren in front
of Little Chicago, and they were obviously adults.
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| Loren and Junen in front of "Little Chicago" in Hanska, MN. Junen was on the local baseball team. Circa 1940. |
Then I realized that after
Prohibition ended, the state of Minnesota took charge of liquor sales—you had
to go to a Muni (municipal liquor store) to buy liquor, and the price included
a state tax. According to the Minnesota Department of Alcohol and Gambling,
“In December 1933, Minnesota passed the Liquor Control Act.
The act was established to regulate the manufacture, distribution, retail sale
and consumption of alcoholic beverages in the state of Minnesota.The Liquor
Control Department was created to enforce the Liquor Control Act….The
department had 12 agents. During this time, Minnesota still had many dry
counties. Bootlegging, the transportation and distribution of alcohol beverages
in the dry areas, was an enforcement concern.”
Perhaps Hanska was a dry town(although it later had a very
busy Muni that still does a brisk business as a bar today). Therefore, there
would still have been an incentive to smuggle in tax-free liquor and sell it
under the table even though Prohibition had ended. The Kyllos probably ran the
liquor business in the late 1930s into the early 1940s. I believe that’s the
true story behind the mystery of Little Chicago and my dad’s slightly shady
cousins.
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| Loren Kyllo 1942, Navy uniform |
Both Junen and Loren left their business behind when World
War II began. They enlisted and served honorably, Junen in the Army and Loren
in the Navy. When they returned from the war, they got jobs in the Twin Cities
and married. Loren had two daughters; sadly, Junen died unexpectedly at age 42
with no children.
I’ll keep trying to verify this story about my cousins.
Perhaps the local newspaper’s archives contain advertisements for the auto
repair business that would at least confirm the years that the business
existed.
Sources:
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