A century ago, Harford County was swimming in spirits. Prohibition was law but, in Maryland’s outlier counties, liquor flowed. Moonshiners ran stills in the old barns and deep woods, and bootleggers rattled down back roads to stay off the grid.

During Prohibition (1919-1933), towns like Bel Air, Havre de Grace and Darlington housed speakeasies, which served parched patrons on the sly — often with a nod from local lawmen.

“Harford County officials didn’t bother to enforce [Prohibition],” said Carol Deibel, 79, a local historian in Bel Air. “There are stories of how when the sheriff of Havre de Grace learned the ‘feds’ were coming to raid, he would notify the taverns so they could put certain objects in their front windows to signal that they weren’t serving that day.”

In Bel Air, a favorite gin joint was Mrs. Dunnigan’s Hotel & Restaurant, at Courtland and Bond streets, opposite the county courthouse. Originally a hotel, the hostelry had a bar in the back that was owned by the town’s court clerk. Rumor has it that, in the 1920s, a tunnel linked the speakeasy to the courthouse.

On Sept. 21, the Bel Air Alliance will pay homage to Dunnigan’s with a flapper-era celebration at the Bel Air Armory featuring food, drinks, jazz and gaming tables. It’s an overt salute to a clandestine time in the town’s 150-year-old history.

Not that the hooch didn’t make headlines. “Flagrant whiskey running,” trumpeted a story in The Sun in November 1920, citing “wild and thrilling tales” of rum runners roaring through Harford and Cecil counties.

The Sun recounted “desperate flights and pursuits in the dead of night, punctuated by pistol shots as the machines dash through villages and open country. Several farmers pointed out that when they go to bed at night, it is not improbable that their families will be awakened before morning by a fusillade of shots.”

“At least one young woman, residents of the region believe, is a full-fledged bootlegger, driving an automobile with an abandon fully equal to that of her competitors and carrying a pistol of heavy caliber that she knows how to use.”

The Sun and Bel Air Aegis were rife with woolly accounts of run-ins between rum runners and the law. In May 1924, a swarm of 15 federal agents descended on Havre de Grace, raided 18 establishments, made 15 arrests and seized two truckloads of liquor. During the raids, the wife of one saloon keeper shoved a pistol in the face of a lawman and pulled the trigger; the gun misfired.

Afterward, The Sun reported, “When the dust from the agents’ autos had subsided, Havre de Grace found itself almost as dry as the dusty roads themselves.”

But not for long.

George Wagner, owner of Bahoukas Antique Mall and Brewmania MuZeum, shows off a Prohibition-era bootlegging wine press that is on display. (Kenneth K. Lam/Staff)

What made Harford a haven for moonshiners? An influx of rural folk. Two horse racing tracks. And the county’s proximity to the state line.

“The 1920s saw a tremendous amount of migration here, from West Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina — farmers from the hills of Appalachia, looking for jobs,” Deibel said. They found work at Aberdeen Proving Ground, built in 1917, and at the Conowingo Dam project begun in 1926. Meanwhile, as some had done back home, the rustics built stills and made booze.

At the same time, the bustling racetracks in Bel Air and Havre de Grace attracted mobsters and other rascals out to make a quick buck. Why not hawk alcohol? Bootleggers north of the Mason-Dixon Line found they could steal into Maryland, load up on whiskey and slip back into Pennsylvania, where federal agents couldn’t follow.

“It was certainly the most exciting time to live here,” said Annie McLhinney-Cochran, 66, a resident of Havre de Grace and history buff whose grandfather was once mayor. “People poured into town, during racing season, to gamble and drink. Al Capone stayed at the Hotel Chesapeake. There were pool halls and prostitutes; people called the town ‘Little Chicago.’

Annie McLhinney-Cochran collected items relating to Prohibition-era speakeasies in Havre de Grace, some of which are on display at Bahoukas Antique Mall and Brewmania MuZeum. (Kenneth K. Lam/Staff)

“It seemed everyone was bootlegging. There were speakeasies on every corner and distilleries in the woods and in people’s basements. Booze flowed up and down the roads, the railroad and the [Susquehanna] River.”

Gin joints weren’t the lawmen’s only targets. Again, in Havre de Grace, lawmen stormed into the Blue Bird lunchroom in 1925 and confiscated three cases of moonshine stashed in soft drink bottles.

In 1922, Prohibition agents raided the farm of Nelson Pace, near Street, smashed a 100-gallon still, and confiscated 1,600 gallons of mash (crushed grain and water) and 52 gallons of corn whiskey. Five people were arrested; two escaped in the nearby woods. Soon after, a sting in Cardiff yielded another still and 85 gallons of spirits. A 500-gallon still, churning out whiskey near Deer Creek, was seized in 1924. Two years later, a raid near Dublin nailed moonshiners there.

Sometimes, revenuers managed to catch their prey on the fly. One night in 1920, The Aegis reported, eight feds manned a checkpoint on the outskirts of Bel Air between 11 p.m. and daybreak. The search paid off: Four drivers were arrested, each carrying eight to 12 cases of whiskey “for which the owners could not give a good account.”

Prohibition-era whiskey bottles from liquor dealers Michael Fahey, left, and Isaac Hecht, right, are on display at Bahoukas Antique Mall and Brewmania MuZeum. (Kenneth K. Lam/Staff)

Also that year, a bootlegger being chased in the wee hours by a motorcycle cop near Kingsville crashed his car into a locust tree, breaking both legs and destroying 30 quarts of whiskey. Another pursuit, in 1923, ended when the culprit, in a curious effort to escape, spun his vehicle around, near Bel Air, and smashed it into that of his pursuers, deliberately destroying 350 gallons of liquor.

One bootlegger, his car filled with 150 gallons of brew, led agents on a cat-and-mouse dash through much of the county in July 1933. At one point, The Sun reported, he sped down a paved road toward Hickory, then turned onto a dirt road where his auto sideswiped a steamroller and turned upside down.

That same month, a bootlegger hauling 40 gallons of whiskey led federal agents on a wild booze chase from Hickory to Bel Air. As they neared town, the moonshiner revved up his Plymouth coupe; the agents, in a dark Ford sedan, followed suit.

“Both automobiles whizzed down Pennsylvania Avenue and entered Churchville Road without stopping, the Plymouth swaying all over the road, while the officers’ car ran up on Mr. Stanley Preston’s lawn,” The Aegis reported.

“At that point, the [bootlegger] turned to the right at Hiser’s service station and into the heavy Main Street traffic. The rum runner attempted another means of escape. Parking his car opposite the post office, he jumped out and fled. After a speedy footrace [in which local residents joined in], the culprit was caught hiding under the porch of Stanley Preston’s residence.”

His efforts were ill-timed. Five months later, the 21st Amendment became law and Prohibition was dead.