Clay County Histories
Markus Krueger | Program Director HCSCC
An ad for a Moorhead bar the week beer was legalized, April 1933
The Minnesota’s House and Senate voted to legalize recreational marijuana last week. I, for one, am excited. No, not because I’m going to rush out and buy any. From a scholarly perspective, of course! One of my enduring fascinations is how local alcohol prohibition laws affected the border towns of Fargo and Moorhead through history. I am very interested to see if Minnesota repealing marijuana prohibition in 2023 will have the same effects as North Dakota making alcohol illegal in 1890 or the ending national prohibition in 1933. Here are three of my predictions based on history.
Expect a bunch of marijuana dispensaries in Moorhead. When ND outlawed alcohol in 1890, all of Fargo-Moorhead’s saloons simply moved to Moorhead and everybody kept drinking. In 1900, Moorhead was a town 3,700 people with about 45 saloons and a brewery!
A similar thing happened in 1933, when beer was legalized in the closing days of nation-wide alcohol Prohibition. Fargo initially declined to allow licenses for beer sales, so everyone again went to Moorhead to drink. On April 7, 1933, Moorhead opened 21 bars and 9 to-go beer stores for the day Prohibition died. Booze was good for business in Moorhead.
The town’s reputation may suffer. But which town? Moorhead earned a wicked reputation as a sinful saloon town in the 1890s, while alcohol-free Fargo claimed to be the righteous side of the river. Yet most of the patrons in Moorhead’s saloons were North Dakotans who walked through Fargo’s Red Light district to get here. Both towns used these saloons, state laws just placed them all in Minnesota.
As long as pot is illegal to buy in Fargo, Moorhead’s marijuana industry will also be overwhelmingly North Dakotans simply because they outnumber Minnesotans around here. Still, it is probable that Moorhead will gain a local reputation as a hippy stoner town. But perhaps not. Pot legalization may actually be less controversial today than alcohol legalization was in 1890 or 1933. A 2021 Gallup poll showed 68% of Americans want marijuana legalized. It may actually be Fargo’s reputation that suffers – for being behind the times.
Expect more information and better options. During Prohibition, our ancestors bought illegal liquor from bootleggers in 8-ounce glass flasks called “Mickeys” for the modern-day equivalent of $20-40. Each time they wondered: “What did I just buy?” Is it local moonshine or industrial poison? Is it 90% alcohol or mostly water? People have few options when buying illegal substances on the black market, there is no real quality control, and no trustworthy product information. Today, we choose our legal drinks from menus that describe exactly what we are getting from licensed bars, breweries, and distilleries: “I want a locally made pilsner that is 5% alcohol.”
I’ve heard people of a certain age complain that pot is much stronger today than it was in the 1970s, and they don’t like being that intoxicated. Now that it is legal, people will to go into licensed and regulated stores to make informed decisions from a menu: “I want something grown in Minnesota with low levels of THC that will allow me to fully enjoy this Cheech and Chong movie without falling asleep.”
Let’s see how history unfolds!