‘Westerville: The War Machine of Prohibition’

Available for purchase at Pure Roots & Amish Originals

Commissioned by Uptown Westerville Inc., this local history book explores and celebrates Westerville’s role in the extraordinary American story of Prohibition. The 92-page coffee table book was issued in 2019, upon the 100th anniversary of enactment of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Read colorful tales of Westerville’s Dry past, from its founding in 1858, to its luring of the Anti-Saloon League to locate its national headquarters here in 1909, and the ASL’s mighty printing presses that made tiny Westerville the epicenter of the Prohibition movement.

Those presses of the American Issue Publishing Co. printed enough pages of anti-alcohol material to circle the Earth 80 times, leading the successful lobbying effort to convince AMericans to vote the nation Dry and establish Prohibition through passage of the 18th Amendment.

Westerville: The War Machine of Prohibition is written and curated by Westerville journalist Joe Meyer. Beyond its local history accounts including stories about Westerville’s famous Whiskey Wars (1875-79), a profile of ASL campaigner William “Pussyfoot” Johnson and how alcohol sales have sparked redevelopment of Uptown into a regional dining and entertainment destination, the book serves as a guide to the many historical sites in town tied to its Temperance past.

Online sales are no longer offered, but the War Machine  book is available for purchase at two Uptown stores: Pure Roots Boutique, 18 N. State St., and Amish Originals, 38 N. State St. Copies also are available to borrow from the Westerville Public Library.