Greetings family, neighbors and friends! This chapter of the Ralph Family Photo Album is a little different than usual and may surprise you as it's based on a self published book by a local author, Castro Valley history, and what we know about our dad's teenage years. Enjoy!
Photo#1 - The Cover of Jackas Brandy by Bruno Buti
Photo #2 - Kuhn's Grocery Store
“A tale of legendary men - Bootleggers that defied the unjust
laws of Prohibition - The Robin Hoods of the Roaring Twenties”
From the book jacket of Jackass Brandy by Bruno Buti. Self published in 1994 Midnight car chases over the dusty unpaved roads of Castro Valley, Hayward and San Leandro. Headlights off, souped up engines, squealing tires and gun shots as Alameda County D. A. Earl Warren’s G-men try to apprehend the troublesome bootleggers from Crow Canyon as they attempt to deliver their clandestine product to speakeasies in Oakland and San Francisco. A low budget “B” Movie? Nope, these were real scenes played out on the back roads of Southern Alameda County in the 1920’s.
Originally intended to save grain for the war effort, the U.S. Congress passed a temporary ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages that ultimately resulted in the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution in 1919...Prohibition. The law proved successful in saving grain, reducing the amount consumed liquor, cutting death rates and absenteeism, however it also stimulated more than a decade of rampant organized underground criminal activity, some perpetrated right here in our own backyard.
There were dozens of illegal stills and secret storage locations hidden in secluded Cull, Crow, Norris, Jensen and Eden canyons in the Diablo range foothills between Castro Valley and San Ramon. Supplies were readably available at the Hayward Poultry Producers Warehouse in Hayward and in neighboring Castro Valley at several locations including Pete’s Hardware and Kuhn’s Grocery Store. Many of the operations were well known by authorities but were allowed to continue the production of their illegal products by sympathetic police and sheriff officers who shared in the illicit profits, while “looking the other way”.
According to Bruno Buti’s 1994 historical novel Jackass Brandy, an enterprising teenager from Castro Valley, Billy Ralph, who worked at Kuhn’s grocery store occasionally delivered sugar and other supplies to questionable low profile customers in the canyons. It wasn’t long before Billy became a trusted “runner” using his bike or the store’s Model “A” Ford truck to deliver cash stuffed envelopes to crooked authorities and occasionally was entrusted to deliver messages back to the bootleggers in the canyons (usually a demand for more money!). Buti writes that our dad Billy (William Henry Ralph), was recognized as “not only honest, but keen of mind as well. He had built up one hell of a money making business among the bootleggers”.
The end of midnight runs, secret meetings and cash deliveries came in 1933 with the passing of the Twenty First Amendment, repealing Prohibition. Some of the smaller family still’s remained in operation producing and delivering legal brew. Earl Warren’s record of dealing with tainted Federal agents, crooked lawyers and dishonest local police helped in his election as Governor of California and ultimately the appointment to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Kuhn’s grocery store ultimately went out of business while Pete’s Hardware continues to serve the community to this day. Dad got a job as a apprentice machinist at Caterpillar Tractor Company and married Constance (Connie) Swinnock, borrowed money to buy a plot of land and built a family home in Castro Valley not far from where the canyon hideaways once stood. They raised 3 children and were active in scouting and community activities but dad never talked about the experience of being a bootleg “runner”. (12/28/20)
