Jack Daniels whiskey was a regional brand, seldom seen outside Tennessee. But events in St. Louis would place it on the national stage, in more ways than one. No one knows for sure how it came to be called "Old No. 7". Some claim it was from their government registration number, but one who was present at the time claimed that when Daniel decided to enter the competition at the St Louis World's Fair, he sampled the whiskey from seven different barrels. Thinking the last one tasted the best, it was "Old No. 7" that went to St Louis, & took home the Gold Medal.
With his health beginning to fail, & having no children of his own, Jack Daniel turned the distillery over to two of his nephews, Lemuel Motlow & Richard Daniel in the Fall of 1907. Motlow, who had been the firm's bookkeeper, then purchased his cousins shares for $500, & became the sole owner.
Moore County, Tennessee, where the Lynchburg distillery was located, voted to go "dry" in 1909, & on the same ballot, the entire state voted to follow suit, beginning the following year. With the State of Tennessee outlawing the manufacture of liquor, the Jack Daniel's Distillery was moved to St Louis. Another, smaller facility was opened in Birmingham, Alabama, but they would only be open a short time, before that state also outlawed alcohol.
The St Louis operation, on the South side of Duncan Avenue, just East of Sarah, was purchased from the Wabash Railroad for $20,000. It had previously been the Rock Springs Distillery, which was absorbed by the Whiskey Trust in 1900. Within a month, they were selling the used grain, known as distillery slop, as hog & cattle feed.
In June 1911, an arsonist set fires in the West End on three successive nights, with the third destroying the distillery building. Several hundred head of cattle, kept on site & being fattened up for market, were saved, but 2,000 barrels of whiskey sent flames hundreds of feet into the night sky, drawing what was estimated to be 1000 motorists to the area to watch the blaze. A new distillery was erected in 1915.
With the onset of nationwide Prohibition in 1920, the distillery continued operation, on a medicinal-use license, selling to drug stores at a reduced price. But costing more to produce than he could sell it for, he was losing money on each transaction. One night in December 1922, 10 men, believed to be Egan's Rats, knocked out the watchman, & made off with 16 barrels & 115 cases of whiskey. An amount that the distillery would sell for $25,000 was worth six times that much to bootleggers. To make matters worse, they were a bottled-in-bond distillery. Under the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897, the government assured that what was in the bottle was exactly what it said on the label. In addition, taxes would be paid on the product when it left the warehouse. And to the Internal Revenue, it didn't matter if it was sold or stolen, taxes had to be paid when it went out the door. Adding insult to injury, the distillery not only lost the whiskey, but they had to pay taxes on it. Lem Motlow began looking to sell the business.
George Remus was born in Berlin, & as a young boy, came to Chicago with his parents. At 14, he went to work in his Uncle's drug store. Putting himself through school, at 19 he was a certified pharmacist, & two years later, he bought his Uncle's business. Purchasing an additional store, he then went to law school. After Prohibition began, he started seeing his friends & associates become extremely wealthy. Combining the skills of a druggist with the ability to see legal loopholes, he began buying distilleries with a medicinal-use license, at rock-bottom prices. His employees would then hijack their own shipments, which he would then sell to bootleggers. Within three years, it's estimated he had made over $40 million. Hosting lavish parties, upon departure each male guest would be given a diamond stickpin. Each female guest received a new Pontiac automobile.
On June 26, 1923, Remus & his associates purchased the Jack Daniels Distillery for $115,000. This included the building on Duncan Avenue, & more than 40,000 gallons of whiskey. A straw-buyer was used, since Remus had recently been convicted in the US District Court in Cincinnati, & being
sentenced to a Federal Prison, the deal would have never gone through had his identity been known. In August, less than two months after taking over, the whiskey was siphoned off, & the barrels filled with water. When the theft was discovered, dozens were arrested. With George Remus having been the government's star witness, when verdicts were rendered in December 1925, 23 had been convicted, including a handful of prominent St Louis politicians. Given time to get their personal affairs in order before heading to Leavenworth, the group was allowed to rent their own Pullman train car, & a crowd of thousands cheered them as their train pulled into St Louis Union Station.
The government also prosecuted Lem Motlow, claiming he should have seen the warning signs that the distillery sale wasn't legitimate. In town to answer those charges, Motlow would later get drunk, & boarding a Louisville & Nashville train to return home to Tennessee without a ticket, he created a commotion, singing, & refusing to take his seat. A black porter, Ed Wallis, told him that such conduct wasn't allowed on the train. Asserting that he wasn't going to take any back talk from a Negro, Motlow began chasing Wallis down the aisle. Clarence Pullis, a white conductor entered the car, & getting between the two men, instructed Motlow to sit down, & when he refused, Pullis pushed him into a seat. Standing again, he was pushed back into the seat by Wallis. Motlow pulled a revolver from his coat pocket, & attempting to shoot Wallis, fired into the abdomen of the white conductor. The train was already underway, & by all accounts, in the tunnel leading to the Eads Bridge when the shooting occurred. Crossing the river, the train stopped, Pullis was taken to the hospital, & Motlow arrested & questioned. Police reports indicated that Motlow was clearly drunk, & during questioning, said that he was too drunk to remember what had happened. Pullis would die in the hospital from his gunshot wound, & due to the location of events, each state would claim jurisdiction.
Opening in St Louis Circuit Court in December 1924, it was one of the most blatantly racist trials the city has ever seen. Motlow's seven high-priced lawyers were assisted by a slew of prominent character witnesses, which included Tennessee Governor Austin Peay, for whom a College has since been named. Motlow, now claiming that he wasn't drunk, testified that he had been strangled by the Negro porter, & then struck by both his fist & a stick, & he was only responding in self-defense. Turning it into a case of "who do you believe", the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.
The last tie between St Louis & Jack Daniels was the distillery building. Its final tenant was Berger Foods, the last pickle factory in St Louis. Torn down, the IKEA was recently built on the site.
