Around Burlington: Shootout at the soft drink saloon

It was 1922 and Prohibition ruled the land. And that was when the “soft drink emporium” at the corner of Burlington’s Third and Division streets became a civic embarrassment.

Generally, the nationwide ban against serving and consuming alcohol was only half-heartedly enforced locally.

But C.S. Corwin’s emporium of illegal booze had managed to cross the fuzzy line dividing the acceptable from the prohibited.

It culminated when federal officers from Des Moines visited the town and were made aware by local “drys” that Corwin’s was the place to go for an after-work picker-upper or a Saturday night debauch.

The Feds leaned on Burlington Police Chief Al Wisely and demanded the bar must be closed.

So the much put-upon chief put together a raiding team of local officers to accompany the Des Moines agents with the intent of shutting Corwin down.

But it soon developed that no one had taken into account Corwin’s feisty nature and his determination to continue serving the needs of his thirsty Burlington clientele.

Late one evening, eight officers burst through the door at the soft drink bar, just as owner Corwin entered the room from a back storage room.

Both Corwin and the police were initially startled by the encounter and it quickly developed that this was not to be another slap-on-the-wrist raid resulting in a nominal fine and business-as-usual the following day.

Corwin was at the time of the raid carrying a half-pint bottle just ordered by a customer, and when Night Captain Carl Nelson reached for the bottle, Corwin unexpectedly ducked and struck the officer alongside the head.

Nelson countered by striking the bar owner with his sap. And then, to make matters much worse, Corwin reached beneath his coat, produced a large revolver, and fired at the policeman.

This was not the way the game should be played, and the room dissolved into shouts and screams.

Patrons scampered for the door and Chief Wisely, who had been standing in the center of the room attempting to read aloud the warrant for the raid, was forced to dive under a table for shelter from further shots.

Officer Clyde Lewis was not as quick. He was standing by the cash register when Corwin unlimbered the heavy artillery and the policeman was struck in the hip by the shot meant for Nelson.

Corwin then turned and ran through a back room and up the stairs to his apartment above, pursued by bullets from the raiding party.

Night Captain Kelly emptied his gun, but his shots went wild. Corwin then paused at the top of the stairs and riddled a door at the bottom of the stairs with bullets as the police ducked for cover.

Officer Lewis was dragged from the building and loaded into a Federal Marshal’s car to be transported to the hospital, and the call went out for all of the town’s law officers to join the battle on Third Street.

In the upstairs apartment, conditions were equally chaotic. Corwin’s wife and sister-in-law were there, and at the sound of shouts and shots, the sister-in-law promptly fainted.

Corwin emptied a pan of water on her, and told the women to escape down the back stairs, as he provided covering fire.

He then leaned out the window and took a shot at officer Carl Nelson who was standing in the street.

The bullet grazed Nelson’s head, but the two women were able to dash to safety.

As a crowd of bystanders grew, a strange enthusiasm for the conflict now seemed to grow among the authorities. Some even urged a frontal assault be made on the building where Corwin had now barricaded himself.

Fire Chief L.F. Blank urged that ladders be raised to allow a storming of the building. But Chief Wisely refused to send his officers to certain injury or doom against the armed and increasingly frantic Corwin.

The authorities now opted to mount a siege of the building, and Corwin was left to contemplate what he got himself into.

A few hours elapsed before Corwin’s brother, Fred, and “Shorty” Williams — the bartender at the soda shop — were brought to the battle site.

They convinced the police chief to allow them to enter the building to talk to Corwin, and permission was granted. The two men were, at long last, able to convince Corwin to surrender.

Corwin would later mount a legal defense centered on a belief that the police raiders were simply mistaken for crooks intent on robbing the soft drink emporium.

It didn’t work and Corwin ended up spending the next 10 years as a guest of the state, and when the federal officers returned to Des Moines, Burlington simply found another soft drink emporium to frequent.

This article originally appeared on The Hawk Eye: Around Burlington: Soft drink saloon served soda water and moonshine