Westerville Tutors Come To You

Westerville, Ohio is a city once known for being “The Dry Capital of the World.” Most people know that there was a time in history when alcoholic beverages were strictly forbidden. From 1920 to 1933, the only way to quench the thirst for a alcohol, was through underground speakeasies, back country moonshine, and the fear of getting thrown in jail. For just over a decade, it was constitutionally illegal to have a stiff drink. But for Westerville, Ohio, residents hardly noticed when the Eighteenth Amendment took effect in January of 1920. Not because they were disregarding the law, but because they had already been living in a state of prohibition for sixty-one years.

In 1859, the city of Westerville passed an ordinance that prohibited the sale of alcohol. However, for the same reason that the U.S. only lasted thirteen years in a prohibition, the local ordinance was often a point of contention for Westerville residents. By the 1870’s, there was a deep divide between citizens that were for and against the local Temperance movement. A Temperance movement is a social movement, that specifically disapproves of the sale of alcohol. Typically, a Temperance movement is organized to criticize the act of becoming intoxicated, encourage people to abstain from drinking, and work towards passing a government ruling or regulation for alcohol sales. In Westerville, the local divide became known as the “Westerville Whiskey Wars.”

The town was so heated over the debate, that in both 1875 and 1879, when Henry Corbin a local businessman, tried to open up a saloon, residents blew up his establishment with gunpowder. The town’s reputation for Temperance became so widespread that in 1909, the Anti-Saloon League moved its national headquarters from Washington D.C. to Westerville, Ohio. In fact, it was the Anti-Saloon League that worked so hard to pass the Eighteenth Amendment, ten years later. To put it into perspective, the League made so many leaflets to compel people to support temperance and prohibition, that every month, they sent out over forty tons of mail; and Westerville became the smallest town in the U.S. to have its own first class post office.

Even though Prohibition ended in 1933, Westerville’s convictions about alcohol kept the city dry for several more decades. Westerville could tutor people in how to faithfully stand by their convictions. In 1995, the city annexed nine hundred and forty-one non-dry acres of land to the north, where businesses were finally allowed to serve alcohol. Over the last couple decades, the city has slowly allowed alcohol sales throughout several site specific locations; and in 2006, the first beer to be served in Uptown, Westerville, after over seventy years of abstinences, was poured at Michael’s Pizza.

Westerville tutors want all students to do well in school. If you child is struggling in school, a Westerville tutor could be just what you need. Every student deserves the chance to succeed.