"Blum Followed His Own Nose to Buried Still," read the Boulder Daily Camera headline on March 15, 1927. Sheriff Robert Blum uncovered a 40-gallon still on the property of A. H. Harrington in Louisville while hunting chicken thieves. On December 26, 1929, Blum and his deputies exposed another still just south of the University of Colorado campus.

Colorado enacted an alcohol ban in 1916, a full four years before national prohibition. The Volstead Act, which was passed to enforce the 18th Amendment, was meant to keep Americans from giving in to the immoral influence of alcohol. However, as Boulder County’s stills suggest, it had the opposite affect. Until its repeal in 1933, the 18th Amendment led to increased alcohol consumption, usually in "speakeasies" serving "bathtub gin" or alcohol made in homemade stills.

Photographer Ed Tangen captured some of these stills on film while working as an identification officer and deputy at the Boulder Sheriff’s Department. He meticulously photographed crime scenes, fingerprints, and bullet fragments. His skill even caught J. Edgar Hoover’s attention. After he died, his negatives were sold at auction. Attorney Fred Mazzulla purchased several thousand images, which are now housed at the Colorado Historical Society. They provide a fascinating look into Colorado’s underworld.

BY KARYL KLEIN, Library Technician