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🏘️ Croton Local History
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woman’s aid or—despite George McCall’s eyewitness account—that the pilot was a woman. 7 A police photo of a female bootlegger showing the life-vest-style containers for liquor hidden under her coat. The “powder puff pilot” theory was given credence
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by the extraordinary confession of one of seven rum runners captured on a converted submarine chaser off the New Jersey coast, two days after the rum plane crashed. The ship was seized with a cargo of liquor worth $200,000 from the Bahamas by an
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American “rum cruiser.” The New York Tribune reported that the confession “goes far to explain the female toggery in the captured airplane. According to it, girls and women are regularly employed in an aerial rum running traffic between Montreal and
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New York. . . . Detailed information, including the names of a score or more women rum runners, with registry numbers of planes as well as of auto trucks and marine craft engaged in the trade are said to be included in a document of some 5,000 words
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in length.” 8 A Croton Connection? Was it a mere coincidence that the rum plane crashed so close to the Tumble Inn, one of Croton’s notorious speakeasies? Since the area is so hilly it’s hard to imagine where the plane would have landed, but why was
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a car waiting to whisk the pilot away? Only a few weeks before the crash the Tumble Inn had been raided, after a waiter handed a neatly printed wine list to a diner, Ralph A. Day, who happened to be the Federal Prohibition Director for the State of
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New York. When Day returned to his office he sent several agents to have a nice dinner at taxpayer expense and “dry up” the Tumble Inn. The agents were served several different kinds of wine with their meal and when they were finished they arrested
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the head waiter, John J. Jenkins, and waiter Joe Acerboni. The New York Evening World reported that “although the dining room was crowded with guests when the arrests were made . . . few knew what was taking place.” 9 A month after the crash the
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Nikko Inn was busted by agents who represented themselves as actors. The New York Times reported that “Charles Hase, the owner of the place, asked them to ‘do a turn’ for him. McKay fiddled, Reager sang and Gallante danced. The innkeeper was
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satisfied with their work and was about to hire them, when the agents, after having been served with drinks, as they alleged, at $1.50 a drink, arrested Hase and a waiter, Hero Gotow, on a charge of violating the Volstead act. They gave $1,000 bail
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each for appearance . . . before a United States Commissioner.” 10 Postcard of the Nikko Inn. Across the street from the Nikko was the Mikado Inn, built around 1920 by “Admiral” George T. Moto. A year before the crash Moto was acquitted “after five
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minutes deliberation” in what newspaper accounts at the time called the first case to be tried in Westchester County for an alleged violation of the New York State liquor law. 11 Postcard of the entrance to the Mikado Inn. One Last Mystery In
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addition to the pilot’s identity and gender, the suspicious presence of a waiting car, and the possible Croton connection, there’s one last mystery. Two days after the crash an article in the New York Evening World reported details not found in other
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accounts. After describing the discovery of the map and “several articles of feminine attire” the article states that “information obtained today indicates an attempt was made to recover this map from the wreck. Among those who visited the scene
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yesterday was a young man in a naval aviation uniform. He said he heard the machine had been abandoned and he thought there might be parts he could salvage. According to Dr. Miller of Croton 12 a man in the uniform of a naval aviator reached the
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plane soon after it crashed and called to the pilot, naming him ‘Bill,’ to ask what had happened. The pilot replied that his engine had ‘gone back’ on him. Then the pilot and the naval aviator got into an automobile and drove away.” 13 Who was the
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man in the naval aviator’s uniform and why did George McCall not mention him in his account of the crash? Learn more about Croton in the Prohibition era: Rum-running Submarines off Croton Point? The Motorist’s Playground Oscar Levant Plays the Mikado
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A Delightful Place to Dine Roy Kojima, Busted and Boastful Our Multi-Talented Federal Prohibition Agents If You Follow the Road to Harmon, You Surely Can’t go Wrong Tumble Inn Mikado Inn “Real Photo” Postcard, circa 1920 This is Mikado Inn What’s
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Cookin’ at the Mikado? Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from the New York Times article “Liquor Laden Plane from Canada Falls as it Nears City,” May 16, 1922. ↩︎ “Busy Liquor Route is Shown on Air Route Map,” The Journal & Republican ,
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Lowville, New York, June 1, 1922. ↩︎ Newspaper accounts differ on how many bottles were in the airplane and how many were broken in the crash. The headline of the New York Times article correctly said the plane had 250 quarts but the text had a typo
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and reported the quantity as 150 quarts. Many newspapers picked up the lower number. The Times reported that “about 100 bottles had been smashed.” ↩︎ The Journal & Republican , Lowville, New York, June 1, 1922. ↩︎ “Only Prices Aviate, Say
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Bootleggers, Who Surely Know,” Buffalo Courier , May 21, 1922. ↩︎ “Hooch Airplane Captured by State Troopers,” New York Evening World , May 16, 1922. ↩︎ The Evening World , New York, May 17, 1922. ↩︎ “Powder Puff Betrays Woman as Pilot of Wrecked Rum
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Plane,” New York Tribune , May 17, 1922. ↩︎ “Inn’s Wine List Gets Inn In Bad,” The New York Evening World , April 4, 1922. ↩︎ The New York Times , June 17, 1922. ↩︎ “Westchester Innkeeper Acquitted in Liquor Case,” New York Evening Telegram , July
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12, 1921. ↩︎ Additional research is needed, but articles in the Peekskill Highland Democrat in 1917, 1926 and 1927 refer to “Dr. Miller of Croton.” ↩︎ “Sky Runner Had Woman’s Aid Is Now Believed,” New York Evening World , May 17, 1922. ↩︎ Share this:
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On May 15, 1922, when the Rum Plane crashed in Croton with 250 quarts of Canadian Scotch, it attracted the attention of the police, the press and curious Crotonites. An article in the New York Times reported that when the Westchester County police
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reached the wrecked plane they found “country folk grouped about the battered remains of a once gallant craft, some of them looking quite cheerful over that which the air had provided, others shaking their heads in grief over . . . what had once been
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perfectly able-bodied whisky bottles.” Luckily, one of the “country folk” who hiked up the hill near the Tumble Inn brought along a camera and snapped a couple of photos of the plane before it was dismantled by the police and moved to White Plains.
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Years later, someone put the photos in a small envelope and wrote a note on the front that saved them from obscurity: About 1920 A Curtis Scout Plane crashed across road from our Oscawanna. Had a load of “Farm” whiskey aboard. Last year the envelope