Oklahoma.
Out of all the possible places to find yourself black-out drunk, Oklahoma in the early 20th century is not the first on my list, nor does it make it into the top ten. Not even the top twenty.
Oil was discovered in Oklahoma at the tail end of the 19th century. That brought all sorts of riff-raff out into the wilds of the state to start drilling for black gold, and every time pay dirt was struck out in the middle of nowhere, a boomtown would crop up. These boomtowns lacked the municipal government, infrastructure, and law enforcement of established towns, and some of them never had the opportunity to develop that far. Those that did lasted well beyond the initial oil boom. Those that didn’t disappeared as quickly as they’d been built up.
There’s at least one boomtown that was gone within two years, for example.
And Oklahoma wasn’t exactly an alcohol-friendly state. Before statehood, Oklahoma was two different territories: one was dry, one was not. The Anti-Saloon League and Woman’s Christian Temperance Union were not happy with the sale of liquor at all and engaged in fierce fighting to outlaw it.
They got their way when Oklahoma became a state in 1907. That didn’t stop all the wild nonsense that tended to happen within the boomtowns, though: by their very nature the boomtowns were lawless places, mostly fly-by-night, and full of businesses meant to drain oil workers’ wallets.
And if those workers wanted to drink, by God, they’d get their drink.
So, yes, you really could, against all odds, have a hell of a good time in Oklahoma—depending upon your idea of a good time.
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