"We weren’t dry, I’ll tell you that": Prohibition-Era Alcohol Consumption at Northern Arizona’s Apex Logging Camp

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Saginaw and Manistee Lumber Company operated its Apex logging camp in Northern Arizona from 1928 to 1936. Situated on the Kaibab between the towns of Williams, Flagstaff, and Grand Canyon Village, the extractive industry of lumbering exploded in the 1920s despite economic depressions and dust bowls. Archaeology assemblages of the Apex camp suggest a culture of alcohol consumption, from wine and whiskey bottles, to beer and hops syrup cans. Due to the broad overlapping of the site’s occupation with both state and federal prohibition laws, Apex’s ties with legal and illicit alcohol trade stands out in comparison to the strict nature of contemporary company towns. This paper will examine the prohibition-era alcohol consumption in a Western company town, its place in the network of alcohol trade in Northern Arizona, and its interactions with identity and culture.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

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Contact(s): Nicole Haddow