The "Good Old Days"
In Ringgold County

When Mount Ayr Was Wet

By Mrs. B.M. LESAN

From the Mount Ayr Record News, March 18, 1925

We have always thought of the early history of our little town of Mount Ayr as an exemplary pioneer town. But an old settler told me a little story the other day that put quite a "kink", in that idea, and makes it look like a typical western pioneer town.

At this time most of the officers were "wet," most of the business men were "wet" and most of the riffraff were “wet." Now, I don’t mean that they all got drunk and down in the gutter, for some were gentleman tipplers, but "wet," while some were "wetter" and some got in the gutter.

There were at least two men, Barton B. DUNNING and Ith BEALL who were "teetotalers," but they were sadly in the minority in a town where about 96 percent were "wet." One man had an office, but he did not sail under the captious sign of drug store or saloon, but did a far more rushing business in "wet goods" than all the stores in town did in "dry goods." After a while the women of Mount Ayr got their "Irish" up and secretly organized a band of "crusaders," under the leadership of Mrs. Barton B. DUNNING, and with all the grit of a Carrie Nation (less the hatchet), they marched to this place of business, seized the whisky and poured it in the street.

So the women were all arrested by a "wet" sheriff and tried by a "wet" lawyer before a "wet" court, and fined by a "wet" judge. Mr. DUNNING laughed and told the country women that went into his store, "that it cost him a mule, but that his wife thought it was worth it." But the "crusaders" had their innings after all, as about a score of "wet" husbands had to pay their wives' fines.

Oh, Mount Ayr has not always been the little, quiet, temperate, law-abiding town she is today for when we push the curtain of time aside and look back we have had our drunks, our saloons, our scandals, our murders, our horse thieves and bootleggers and about everything else, except a bank robbery, that any other town has had. But the bank robbers come here to get caught, and we did a "land office" business in that line, a few years ago, or could probably have boasted of the bank robbery by this time.

Now, this is not written to give Mount Ayr the "black eye." Oh, no, but simply to show the improvement in the town, the homes and the men and the difficulties of the pioneer women that have been overcome by temperance and the good fight of the women of the town, the state, and the United States. May the good work go on until all the "old soaks" commit suicide by drinking "bad hooch" and we make it so hard for the rising generation to get booze that they give up drinking before they begin.

Transcription by Tony Mercer, February 10, 2025

The "Good Old Days" is a series of articles that appeared in the
Mount Ayr Record News in the 1920s about the early history of Ringgold County

Articles in this series:
Five Negroes and A Dog Funeral
Indian War of 1855
When Mount Ayr Was Wet
My Experiences of the First Two Years in Ringgold County
When Saloons Cursed Mount Ayr
How Pioneer Mount Ayr Met the Rebel Guerrillas
The Modest Styles of Long Ago
A Kidnapping Incident in Early History of Ringgold County
Early History of Ringgold County Settlers, Part 1
Early History of Ringgold County Settlers, Part 2

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