GILLETTE, Wyo. — Rockpile Museum will celebrate the end of Prohibition with an event at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 8.
To commemorate National Repeal Day, when the U.S. ratified the 21st Amendment and repealed the 18th Amendment, Rockpile Museum Board President Lucas Fralick will give a talk about state and local prohibition history at the museum, which is at 900 W. Second St., Gillette.
Campbell County Rockpile Museum Museum Educator Brittney Elsasser said the event will be at the annex, which is the building across the parking lot from the main museum building. The Saloon will be at the bar exhibit of the annex, she said.
The Railyard will sell Prohibition-era drinks at the event, which will also include appetizers. While entrance to the Saloon is limited to individuals who are at least 21 years old, everyone is welcome to attend the presentation, the release said.
Fralick has a master’s degree in history from the University of Wyoming with a focus in
20th-century American politics and policy, the museum’s news release said. He’s the program coordinator for Wyoming Humanities. He also serves on the Gillette Historic Preservation Commission.
National Repeal Day dates back to Dec. 5, 1933, the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that the 18th Amendment was repealed. Utah was the 36th of 48 states to ratify the 21st Amendment, gaining the country the three-quarters majority of states required for the decision.
A year earlier, U.S. Rep. Henry T. Rainey of Illinois introduced H.J. Res. 480 to repeal the 18th Amendment, which prohibited the production, transportation and sale of alcohol, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Office of the Historian and the Clerk of the House’s Office of Art and Archives said in an article. The resolution failed in the House of Representatives that day, but Rainey’s proposal that the decision be voted on in state conventions instead of state legislatures made it into a joint resolution that both houses of the U.S. Congress passed before sending it to the states.
Check out Wyoming’s current laws regarding alcohol here.
For more information about the Rockpile Museum‘s event, call 307-682-5723 or visit www.rockpilemuseum.com.
Rockpile Museum’s upcoming events also include Christmas Crafts Family Day, which will take place from 10 a.m. to noon Dec. 17. Registration is required.
Santa Claus will visit the museum that day too, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The museum will not require reservations for photos with Santa.
