Bootlegging to Stay Alive

Routt County Memories

Over One Hundred Years in Routt County: Bootlegging to Stay Alive

By Elaine Callas Williams

Louis A. Tikas House, Loutra, Crete, Greece

Immigrants of all nationalities from Oak Creek and the other little coal camps would come to play pool or card games, such as babouti at my grandfather Steve’s pool hall. This is a game like gin rummy. (Winners are two 6’s, two 5’s and two 7’s. All other cards are losers.) These card games were played in the back room, where Steve was more than happy to serve his home brew, or bootlegged liquor. I understand that in 1920, my grandfather also bought the Star Bottling Works in Oak Creek with his friend, Archie Gillas. We always wondered if it was to bottle the homemade firewater he made.

My grandfather Steve was a personable man and made friends easily. He counted among them the Routt County Sheriff and a Greek man, Mr. Kuskulis, from Denver. Mr. Kuskulis was in charge of the local office of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Federal agents would conduct surprise raids at the pool hall. Fortunately, because of my grandfather’s friendships with Mr. Kuskulis and the Routt County Sherriff, one or the other would call Steve on the pool hall phone and warn him that the “feds” were coming. He was never arrested for bootlegging, but he was fined once for illegal gambling.

Steve was also a very resourceful bootlegger. He had a secret hiding place in the house. The master bedroom, which had a trap door in the floor, would become quick storage for the bootlegged alcohol. At night, people would knock on Steve’s bedroom window and he would arise, greet them at the back door and give them a bottle of the liquor they wanted. Sometimes, these townspeople had no money, so they gave my grandfather Steve their shotgun or a pistol as collateral until they could pay him. Many times, my grandfather was never paid, but was left with those guns. After holding the guns for many years, he finally sold them to a man who wanted them. The price of those firearms was what Steve was owed for the liquor. One .44 caliber pistol had 13 notches carved into it. Uncle Spiro always wondered whether those were people or bottles the gun owner had shot. Steve was never caught, and local liquor law breaking ran unchecked in Oak Creek during those years of Prohibition. It may be humorous now but it mortified my poor grandmother, Helen.

Guns and Greeks

Guns were important to the Greeks. At Ellis Island, where my grandparents first landed when they emigrated, there is a photograph of Greeks proudly displaying their guns. To deny a Greek a gun for protection of his family or native homeland was more than antagonizing. It was a personal affront to their dignity and manhood. My great uncle Petros had a Winchester, an unusual gun for an immigrant to have in the U.S. There is some speculation that the Winchester rifle was taken from a dead Colorado militiaman during a conflict with striking coal miners. That same gun sat in the gun closet at Uncle Spiro’s house until he passed away in 2018.

The Cretans were especially gifted with knife wielding skills as well as shooting pistols with amazing accuracy. In fact, the village where my grandfathers were born was known and feared for the men’s skills with the blade. The village’s name, Mahairous, is a derivative of the Greek word, mahairovgaltithes, or knife wielders.

These Greek men would also pull a knife or gun at the slightest suggestion of impropriety. They were warriors. When the Ludlow Massacre in southern Colorado occurred in April, 1914, Greek immigrants hid in the hillsides, ready to kill any Colorado militia in retribution for killing Louis Tikas, the champion labor negotiator from Crete, who the militia killed during the Massacre. Several men came to Oak Creek after Ludlow with their names changed to avoid any association with the Ludlow Massacre of 1914. The father of Walt and Otto Michalik of Oak Creek purportedly was one of those individuals. I was told he changed his name when he arrived in Oak Creek and then used his given name after it was safe.

A tragic example of guns in our own family occurred in 1926. A former Cretan suitor of my deceased great aunt Ekaterini entered her brother Steve’s pool hall, drew his gun and killed Mr. Kapetanakis, the husband of Ekaterini, as revenge for her death. My grandfather Steve turned to this man who shot him in the right leg. His brother Petros ran behind the bar to get his gun. The former suitor told Petros to stop, that he knew he had a gun, but did not want to shoot him too. He said he shot Steve in the leg because he did not protect his sister from Kapetanakis and she died. The killer of Kapetanakis and shooter of my grandfather was arrested and went to prison for his crime. He died during a prison riot in Canon City, when the guards used firehoses to subdue the rowdy prisoners. He was thrown against one of the concrete walls by the force of the water and hit his head hard enough to suffer a cerebral hemorrhage and die.

Steve was taken to Denver for medical care and was away from Oak Creek for about six months. He was hospitalized all of that time with a fragmented bullet lodged in his leg. The doctors pulled out pieces of the bullet during his hospital stay, but it never all came out, and the bullet fragments remained. He returned home in January, 1927 with a cane and a limp lasting the rest of his life. This wound continue to cause my grandfather Steve’s leg to bleed for the next thirty to forty years. Uncle Spiro helped my grandfather tweeze out more bullet fragments from the hole in his leg until the end of his life. My dad and uncle were always afraid that one of those fragments would get into his bloodstream and travel to his heart. Steve would have been dead instantly. My grandparents continued their struggle with money after my grandfather came home. A hat was passed in Oak Creek for my family. The community of Oak Creek did not fail us.

The Depression

The 1930’s were very bleak years in Oak Creek and in this country. These were the years of the Great Depression. My family was luckier than most people who lived in the city because they had a vegetable garden and animals, but it was still tough to get by. Dad and Uncle Spiro were teenagers in those years. In the late 1930s, they loved to go to the dance hall down the street. My Dad, who was a member of the Oak Creek High School Glee Club, Uncle Spiro and Joe Maynarich, Uncle Spiro’s best friend, enjoyed singing and harmonizing together. They also liked to drive around Oak Creek in Joe’s grandfather’s car—an old Ford.

With the end of Prohibition, my grandfather Steve began to lawfully sell alcohol. The town was pretty quiet in those years and many people had moved away when the coal mines slowed their activity. By 1940, there was more activity, but it was not until 1941 with the onset of World War II that Oak Creek’s economy changed for the better. As a result, the Callas family lives dramatically changed.

Plaque on Tikas House, Loutra, Crete Greece. Translation: “Here in 1886 Louis A. Tikas Was Born. Leader of the Coal Miners Union Battle. He Died in Colorado of America at Ludlow on the 20th of April, 1914.”