The Day the Alley Ran Red

The following story was received in a letter to the author from his father in 1980.  The story is told in his father's own words.

The alley that ran red in 1925 [Image: Lydia Moreno]

THE DAY THE ALLEY RAN RED

     This may sound like a gruesome title, but it is a lot different than it may seem.
     The year was somewhere between 1925 and 1927, and Prohibition was in effect.  Many of the residents on Solano Avenue and Casanova Street were Italian, and they always made their own wine.
     Somehow, word got around that there was going to be a raid by Federal Prohibition Officers.  This was important news, because at that time, making wine was strictly illegal and the residents either had not, or could not, pay the taxes to make wine for their own use.
     Anyhow, word got around that there was going to be a raid, so the Italians started to dump their illegal, homemade wine into the alley.  The alley was made of concrete and it was about 12 feet wide with a slight "V" in the middle.  So as a result of all the wine being dumped into the alley, there was a very good flow of Red Wine down the middle of the alley.
     Other residents must have heard what was going on, because there were people up and down the alley scooping up the wine, putting it into bottles, and leaving quickly.

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Bill Bouett, ca. 1923

Guillermo Carlos Bouett, known almost his entire life as 'Bill', was born in 1915 on Avenue 32 in Los Angeles and was baptized in the Plaza Church.  Before he was five, Bill Bouett moved with his parents to a house at 427 Solano Avenue in Solano Canyon, where he lived for more than a decade before his family moved again, this this time to Alhambra.  The incident described above occurred about 1925 during Prohibition.

The image at left was taken about 1923, a few years before the raid described in the story.  In the image, eight-year-old Bill Bouett stands beside his family's home on Solano Avenue.  In the background, higher up on the loma, one can see one of the houses on Casanova Street.  The 'alley that ran red' is located between the two streets.

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— Lawrence Bouett