The Wisconsin Historical Society and Old World Wisconsin are opening a historic tavern on May 17, 2025. Wittenbel's Tavern, established in 1906, has been restored to recreate a post-Prohibition 1930s tavern.
Jim Draeger is the former state historic preservation officer at the Wisconsin Historical Society. Draeger shares his knowledge about the history of Prohibition in Wisconsin and his 2012 book Bottoms Up: A Toast to Wisconsin’s Historic Bars and Breweries.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What inspired you and Mark Speltz to write Bottoms Up and how did your background in historic preservation shape the book’s approach?
We didn't actually set out to write a book about taverns. The Wisconsin Historical Society approached me because they had interest in a book on the subject. Mark and I had previously written a book together called Fill ’er Up: The Glory Days of Wisconsin Gas Stations, which is the history of gas stations in Wisconsin. After the society approached me, I called Mark up and asked him if he would be willing to work with me again, and he agreed, so we ended up doing the book.
My background as a historic preservation person really did inform the book quite a bit in the sense that we were trying to recognize taverns and breweries that were still intact from whatever period in time they were built in because we wanted to be able to explain the history of taverns and breweries over time. And then direct people to taverns and breweries that still embodied all those characteristics that we were talking about. So, you could read about how the architecture of taverns was shaped by various social, cultural and historical forces and then you could actually go to a tavern and that embodied that.
What are some of the stories that you came across that you included in your book that resonated with you or surprised you in any way?
Wisconsin was one of the states that voted for Prohibition, which is quite surprising considering Wisconsin's history and especially all of the German and other ethnic groups that settled in Wisconsin that came from beer drinking cultures. It's quite surprising that they actually voted for it. But the groundswell for Prohibition was basically a reaction to the huge social problems that were caused by excess alcohol drinking before Prohibition. People before Prohibition, they drank roughly three times as much alcohol as people do today, and there were no social safety nets to deal with that problem.
At that same time, young men are flocking into the cities from the farms to work in the factories. So, you have these this huge surge of young men, single men moving into the cities and going to taverns and it created some immense social problems.
You mentioned some of the men and their roles in that. What roles did women have and how did their involvement kind of shape the post-Prohibition bar culture as well?
Before Prohibition, taverns were male spaces. Women were not allowed into taverns, and many communities actually had specific laws against women going into taverns because a lot of taverns were also brothels. So, women were excluded from that, with the exception being that some taverns had what they called the ladies lounge or ladies parlor at the back of the building. That was separate from the tavern, closed off by a door and women and children and families could go in there. But the bartender would not allow them in the bar. The bartender would go back into that room to serve them.
But during Prohibition that gets stood on its head because when speakeasies come after Prohibition, they're lawless places. There are no rules, so all of a sudden women can go to the speakeasy if they want to. Young women are attracted to speakeasies because they're trying to throw off the shackles of their Victorian mothers and live a modern life. So, they're bobbing their hair, they're smoking cigarettes, they're dancing the Charleston. The woman's role changes rather dramatically with Prohibition, because the speakeasies allowed access for women that hadn't been there for them beforehand.
How can communities today preserve stories and structures of these historic taverns?
Visit them. Become patrons. One of the surprising things for us was after the book came out, we started seeing taverns that we'd featured in the book going out of business, and it made me realize just how fragile these things are. Being a patron and supporting them is obviously very important. I think for the taverns themselves, the ones that are successful that continue, they have some kind of niche that they belong to. They have a particular way of doing business or a particular style that is successful. But taverns aren't static. They have to change constantly to keep up with the broader business.
If you decided you're going to stake your fortune on being a craft beer tavern, that was a great idea 10 years ago. Now, it's getting a lot harder because there's a lot of change that's happened just since the book came out. Younger people don't drink very much anymore. About 25% of the population of people from the age of 21 to 30 don't drink any alcohol at all anymore. So that's certainly having an impact. I think price is having an impact as things are getting tighter in the economy. People are having finding it harder to go buy that $10 tap at the bar. They'd rather just drink at home. But I think the only way that they can be preserved is if people are patrons of them.
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