"Prohibition"....by Bob Sanders

 

Fourth Corner TV viewers fortunate enough to have seen Ken Burns' absorbing documentary, "Prohibition," probably are unaware there's a second shoe that, understandably, never dropped during the fascinating look at Roy Olmstead, a featured bootlegger in part two of the three-part PBS series.  First a cop, then Seattle's biggest mover of booze, Olmstead received a lot of attention from Burns.

That second shoe involves what happened after Olmstead, a Robin Hood-like character, was finally done in by a series of events during the last four months of 1924.  It was in September of that year that a trusted Olmstead lieutenant turned informant revealing intimate details of Olmstead's operation.  A series of raids by federal agents, aided by wiretaps and surveillance on Olmstead's home, was followed by the bootlegger's arrest November 17 of that year.  Arrested with him: a wife and 15 guests.

Because of time constraints involved in packing a sprawling and complicated story into five and one-half hours, Burns was understandably unable to expand upon Olmstead's remarkable tale by including material likely of interest only to people of the Pacific Northwest.

Let's back up a bit while adding details.  Olmstead had joined the Seattle police force in 1907 rising through the ranks to be named its youngest lieutenant in 1917.  That was one year after the State of Washington became one of 23 states to enforce "dry laws" that produced Prohibition.  It was while making bootlegging arrests that Olmstead noticed a lack of "professionalism" among the criminals and decided he could do a better job.  Soon, as the Burns film indicates, he was making more in a week than he could as a cop in 20 years.  His entrepreneurial spirit was reminiscent of Willie Sutton who targeted banks because "that's where the money is."

Olmstead's rum-running success, whose key factor was proximity to Canadian liquor where there were no prohibitive laws, lasted nearly four years.  Early on, his criminal activities were discovered and his police career was over.  His only charge was a $500 fine; the experience strengthened a belief that bootlegging offered more advantages than police work.

Olmstead also changed wives marrying Elise Caroline Parch, something of a dazzler whom he met in the summer of 1924.  They wed August 5 of that whirlwind year.  Friends observed Elise as quite an improvement over former wife, Viola, and it was the young and vivacious Englishwoman (they met in Vancouver, B.C.) who maneuvered Olmstead into purchasing a knockout of a mansion in the Mt. Baker area.

Possessor of an agile mind, Olmstead had become interested in the possibilities offered by new-fangled radio broadcasting and a logical progression of thought produced an exciting use of extra space in his home.  Whether Burns chose to ignore Olmstead's creation of a radio station in his mansion (a matter of record) or because, as Seattle author Emmett Watson learned, all of the bootlegger's police records were destroyed, is anybody's guess.

Evidence does exist that Olmstead's radio station, KFQX, was Seattle's first; further, the station's broadcasts were from what had been a bedroom in the home the two often referred to as their "snow white palace."  The good times rolled in Olmstead's Gatsby-like existence with old-timers insisting that wife Elise's dulcet English voice was employed to signal rum-running boats in Puget Sound through codes sprinkled among Mother Goose rhymes and Hans Christian Andersen stories.

Alise's broadcast persona was as "Aunt Vivian" who read to "children" of the Puget Sound as twilight approached for the daytime-only station.  Those possessed of a sense of humor wondered if more appropriate station call letters might be KRUM?  It is now the venerable and all-news KOMO.

Since those were the days before radio newspaper columns and awards shows, there are no records indicating the quality of the programs originating in the Tara of Radio.  The only audience that really mattered: crews of rum-running boats.  In retrospect, it appears radio neophyte Olmstead was stumbling around in what would become the hallowed halls of broadcast narrowcasting.

During all of this, Olmstead was a popular member of a Seattle society aware that more than half of the city's police force was in on the game.  Although rum-running was hardly a walk in the park, Olmstead's employees were prohibited from carrying firearms.  He was often quoted as saying he would rather lose a shipment of booze than a life.

Not to stray too far from the core of this story, but the online Encyclopedia of Washington State History insists Alfred M. Hubbard, a young inventor, built the radio station in a spare bedroom of the Olmstead mansion.  Highly mysterious, Hubbard has various online accreditations including being called "the Johnny Appleseed of LSD."  Apparently, he also worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) later called the CIA.  It was Hubbard who informed on Olmstead in the fall of 1924, a career move for the young man who swapped life in the mansion to become a prohibition agent that led to the CIA gig.

Thanks to Hubbard, the booze balloon burst on Thanksgiving Day, 1924 when the mansion was invaded by gendarmes including Federal Agent William Whitney, long an Olmstead nemesis.  The November 27 date was big in New York as the first Macy's Parade and even bigger in Seattle with a scene that would have worked in The Untouchables.  Whitney arrested the Olmsteads and, perhaps inspired by the show business setting, began making phone calls to area bootleggers urging them to come to a party ("don't forget to bring some booze") by doing a voice impression of the rum-runner/broadcaster.  The heavily attended party saw 48 revelers charged with breaking the laws of Prohibition.  Details of the rollicking party and Olmstead's remarkable life are told in Watson's book, Once Upon a Time in Seattle.  

Olmstead was sentenced to four years in the McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary and fined $8,000.  With his bootlegging empire in disarray, Olmstead dispatched an underling with orders to re-locate Station KFQX.  He chose Aberdeen, a particularly quiet community in the southwest corner of the state.  Enter Rogan Jones, a businessman and owner of the building chosen by the Olmstead lieutenant to house the station.  Within a few weeks, the station was closed down by the Feds and Jones, whose knowledge of radio equaled an ability to write Sanskrit, eventually inherited KFQX because no one wanted it.  He had become a broadcaster in the strangest of ways.

That was in 1928 and he quickly achieved success although Aberdeen had its limitations.  Looking about, Jones learned that Bellingham, 20 miles south of the Canadian border, had a dormant station available. 

Like Roy Olmstead, Louis Kessler had established a Seattle station in his home.  With call letters KVOS (Voice of Seattle), he began broadcasting in 1926 from an apartment on tony Queen Anne Hill.  A bit overwhelmed by the big city, Kessler moved the station to Bellingham where it folded.

Jones became a huge success in Bellingham.  The future member of the Broadcast Hall of Fame was a natural in his new-found career.  The public appreciated his approach to broadcasting--particularly his battle with the wire services.  While so much of broadcast news today builds its stories around published reports (the New York Times is the most utilized), it wasn't always so.  Back in Jones' time, the wire services refused to sell stories to radio stations.  Jones told his news staff to rewrite newspaper copy and in 1936 the Supreme Court backed him up in a landmark decision.  He then created KVOS-TV largely because the Vancouver area had but one station.  That was in 1953 and much of the advertising placed on the channel was Canadian.  A signal tower atop Orcas Island's Mt. Constitution (elevation 2,400 ft.) did not hurt.

Jones had become the recipient of what critics caustically called "a license to steal" but he became a much-loved and respected broadcaster because of his sense of public service.

The old KVOS radio is now KGMI, a station whose far right programming (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, et al.) is in stark contrast to its origins.  Burns would enjoy the abundant ironies as would Jones, an outspoken liberal, and Olmstead whose life took new direction even before his release from prison in 1935.  Franklin D. Roosevelt granted a full presidential pardon with the $8,000 fine and $2,288 court costs returned.  It would be nice to report that wife Alice of the dulcet voice continued her broadcast career and became "The Singing Lady" or some other significant performer but such was not the case.  She filed for divorce in 1943 claiming Olmstead "deserted her without just cause."

Olmstead wasn't finished with his already highly interesting life.  Having converted to the Christian Science faith while in prison, he spent a great deal of time visiting jails and working with prisoners while castigating demon rum.  Headquartering his ministry in an obscure downtown Seattle office, Olmstead lived an exemplary life his remaining 35 years.  He became everything he wasn't during the first 44.  

The twists and turns of the story are complex but certain conclusions are rather easy.  If Roy Olmstead had not switched careers and become a bootlegger, it's extremely doubtful that Rogan Jones would have become a broadcast pioneer.  Further, had Louis Kessler not failed as a Bellingham broadcaster, the city's FCC license would not have been available to Jones.  Taking another look backwards, the Aberdeen station location, hurriedly switched from Seattle, would not have become a reality had an Olmstead aide not turned informer sending the cop turned bootlegger to prison.

One wonders how our own lives might have been affected had those of greatest impact on us taken different turns in the road? 

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[Bob Sanders]

Hello, Jordan

Glad you enjoyed the piece about broadcasting and bootlegging in the Pacific Northwest.

My mother, who died 15 years ago at age 96, thought I had some potential. Writing is fun but the truth is
that what writers really do is re-write.

Again, thanks for your comment.

Bob Sanders

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Hello, Jordan

Your kind words are most welcome. You might be interested in a column I wrote some seven months ago about Rory McIlroy and what a delightful contrast he is to so many contemporary athletes.

It's called "McIlroy, a Hero for Our Times." Hope you enjoy it.

Bob Sanders

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