A local story, though perhaps something apocryphal, is that when Byron's bottle store opened in OKC in 1959, they had to have arm guards on top of the building for fear of the local evangelical establishment. Purportedly there are pictures, but I have yet to see someone deliver the picture. The story, whether truth or fiction, highlights the liquor struggles in Oklahoma.

In a sense, prohibition was foundational to the establishment of the state of Oklahoma. Before Oklahoma became a state, the powerful Women's Christian Temperance Union established its first branches--in Guthrie and in Oklahoma City, both important towns as Guthrie was the first capital of OK--in what was then the dual territories of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory in 1890. Each territory had its own branch. The group immediately started to keep the push for prohibition strong. When the state held its Constitutional Convention, the WCTU supporters campaigned the convention to include prohibition as part of the state's constitution. Oklahoma was the first state to be admitted into the union with prohibition in its constitution in 1907, thirteen years before nation-wide prohibition. Indeed, the WCTU knew what it was doing. By including the prohibition clause as part of the state's constitution, prohibition would prove difficult to overturn. When anti-prohibition forces tried to get the state to reconsider prohibition in 1910, the WCTU exercised its force, and the measure was soundly defeated. Oklahoma now needed national efforts against liquor laws, if they were to be successful.

That national attention came in the 1930s, with the ending of prohibition. Anti-prohibitionists used the Great Depression to argue that the sell of beer in Oklahoma would spur the local economy and that outlawing beer just led to bootlegging. Indeed, it did. Oklahomans had been brewing what is called "Choc beer"--Choctaw beer--for some time, even before statehood. Probeer folks took advantage to the fact that several states had passed laws allowing beer and opened the issue to the general public. They were successful, but the referendum only allowed low-point beer (3.2% abv) and not hard liquor.

Clearly, prohibition forces were not happy. They tried to overturn it, but as Oklahoma became increasingly more urban, their attempts to limit disruption and sell was defeated. This was the swan song of the prohibition forces. In 1959, the urbanized Oklahoma voted to end prohibition, allowing the sell of hard liquor and strong beers.

But the battle over Oklahoma liquor laws should not be boiled down to the issue of urban vs. rural, with the belief that urban and rural are simple ciphers for liberal and conservative. It is important to remember that Oklahoma had a mean socialist red streak from the 1900-1920. This evangelical establishment that favored prohibition and lent their pulpits to the WCTU also lent their pulpits to the Socialist candidate for president, Eugene Debs.

Both Oklahoma and Kansas had strong local preferences, based in fundamentalist religious beliefs, for prohibition. Both states forbade open saloons (bars anyone could go into) well into the 1980s.

Remember that in several states, the question has been pushed down to local option. So throughout the Mid-South you find many dry counties.