Livingston has never been known as a very temperate town. It’s a point of pride for some that there are roughly as many watering holes as churches.
Since Livingston was built around and centered on the railroad it catered to the industry. Not only were many railroaders living and working in town, but there were also a good many men who came through with the trains, the linemen and brakemen for example.
Often pay was picked up and quickly spent here in town. The Mint Bar was known to cash half a million dollars of railroad checks in a week. If the check was from the Northern Pacific and later Burlington Northern, the bar knew it was good. If pleasure was to be had, it was here.
Next to the many saloons one cannot forget to mention—with a wink and a nudge—that Livingston had a thriving red light district on B Street, which is quaintly remembered now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Imagine the laugh the ladies who worked there would have had back in the day if they had been told their brothels would merit some wholesome attention in the future. But none of this has to do with what’s underneath downtown Livingston.
Tall Tales
It all started with a story heard long ago. The teller of the tale is lost to memory, but the strange tidbit remained with me and actually grew in imagination of the years. The tale involved a tunnel stretching underneath downtown.
100 years ago on the west side of North Main Street next to the former Hefferlin Opera House, a Chinese restaurant stood where the American Bank drive-through is presently located. Supposedly, the owner of the building feared the Chinese would burn the place to the ground if the cooking were done on the premises.
So, the rumors had it, the cooking was done in Livingston’s China Town, located in the area next to Sky Federal Credit Union’s drive through where a little park has been built. The food, once prepared, was run through a tunnel in the basement.
The only problem is that the tunnel has never been found and the story is nothing more than a tall tale. This was confirmed by John Fryer, the owner of Sax and Fryer, who offered a matter-of-fact reply when asked about the network beneath the streets: “What tunnel?”
He, too, had heard the story but said he had found no credibility in it.
The story still planted a seed in a curious mind. The one rumored tunnel grew into a network of underground causeways creating a virtual Livingston beneath the streets.
Both Fryer and local historian Jerry Brekke suggested the tunnel rumor could have arisen from tales of the old steam tunnels underneath town.
On Second Street near the present-day Dan Bailey’s warehouse was the A.W. Miles Coal Plant. The plant generated steam heat and piped it through downtown to heat many of the establishments. The heat in many of the tunnels would have been too much to bear, let alone make the underground channels of any other use than what they were intended for most of the year. It’s doubtful anyone other than the utility department had any interest in them.
Livingston’s Vaults
It turns out that the Chinese tunnel story may have merged in the imagination with another piece of subterranean infrastructure downtown. There are actually a series of vaults underneath the sidewalks that are directly attached to the cellars and basements of businesses on Second, Callender and Main Streets.
Built for purely functional reasons of extra storage space, it turns out the vaults have quite a history of their own.
In front of Sax and Fryer one can see a few square mosaics of cobalt glass which allow for some light to pass through to the vaults under the building. Across the street in front of Allegro restaurant and also down the street in front of The Mint Bar and Theater are iron trap doors allowing for convenient access for moving goods in and out of the vaults.
Aside from old stories of opium dens, the vault spaces under the streets have been used pretty much for what they were designed for: storage. For a short time, however, Livingston had a thriving underground scene.
During Prohibition in the 1920s and 30s, Livingston had tailor-made bootlegging spots all over downtown. Much of the history from this period has been handed down by word-of-mouth and due to its illegal nature could be called hearsay.
Some of the available vault spaces, which were not needed for legal or illegal storage, were turned into speakeasies. One known spot was underneath The Wok restaurant at Callender and Second Streets where the sidewalk has seen some repair due to its hollow nature.
One can still read the advertisements embossed into the sidewalk for “Montana Sport Cigars” which were manufactured around the corner from where American Bank stands now.
One local amateur historian was nosing around down in these vaults some many years ago (before several walls went up underground, keeping a person from walking the entire length of the block) and came across a row of urinals attached to a wall off to the side near the Second Street end. He was surprised by their presence, but it only made sense they were put in to serve a speakeasy, he said. Nothing could be proven and they could just have easily served a legal establishment.
Another spot rumored to be a speakeasy was the old Pastime Bar underneath Livingston Floral and Gifts on the Corner of Callender and Main Streets. For a short time a legitimate bar, The Pastime Down Under operated in the basement vault space until around the year 2000. Going into the establishment was like entering a speakeasy through a side door and down some concrete stairs.
Like a bunker down in the vault under the sidewalks, if someone did not know it was there, there was no telling. There was a mural on one of the pillars that was especially striking, a folk painting of a lovely dark-haired woman with tremendous curves, a Venus of the gin joint. The date of the painting was uncertain, but she may very well have been a holdover from the Prohibition days.
Justin Brown, who was a bartender there, had heard much the same from the old timers who would come in for a drink in the afternoons: the Pastime had been a speakeasy during prohibition. The upstairs had been a drinking establishment before 1919 and during Prohibition it was converted to a grocery and the drinking moved downstairs.
Brown said he had heard there was a warning system in place to signal the arrival of the authorities. While he and the owner Todd Brekke were fixing the place up, he said they found buzzer buttons underneath the bar on the main level but the wires led nowhere.
In addition to moonshine, the Pastime basement was known to hold a collection of one-armed bandits well into the 1960s. Even until its last run as a bar a decade ago, it possessed a feeling of the past that gave credence to its legend.
Bootlegging Legends
The Livingston Vaults were an important center for the area moonshining and bootlegging circuit, especially the ones located beneath the old Albermarle Hotel where the Guest House sits now at the corner of Main and Park Streets.
There were sills up nearly every creek bottom making moonshine in the area to supply the underground trade, but it was up Fleshman Creek where the finest moonshine whiskey was made. The bootleg liquor was stashed in the vaults under the Albermarle, whereupon it was transferred across Park Street into “safe cars” on a waiting train at a designated time.
The most well-known figure in Livingston’s bootlegging history was Dominick “Old Dom” Johnson. He was in charge of the Albermarle end of the trade and oversaw the sills up Fleshman Creek. Prior to Prohibition he and his brother Mike Johnson ran the Club Saloon in the Albermarle. Naturally, when the saloon was closed they continued on underground. When Mike passed away in 1925, Old Dom continued to run the bootlegging business quite successfully.
His story is fondly recalled by Mike’s grandson Everett Johnson in the “History of Park County: 1984,” a collection of written histories of area families. The story was also recorded by his nephew Chester Johnson and can be found at the Yellowstone Gateway Museum.
As a young boy being led to Sunday School in the hotel by his mother, Chester remembers seeing Old Dom sitting in the lobby of the hotel in his leather rocking chair keeping an eye on things. He had a private room off the lobby next to the stairs. Everett’s mother told the young boy that Old Dom’s room “led to something evil” and was off-limits.
Maime Herrlin, who ran the hotel at the time, used the skylight in the lobby as a solarium and tended to a variety of flowers. The sweet smell of the flowers mixed with the more pungent aroma of moonshine as young Everett passed Old Dom’s room and caused him to joke that, “I later learned it was not as I thought then, the way it would smell in heaven.”
“This booze was shipped to every state in the Union and seven foreign countries...I can remember seeing lines of wagons piled with 2’ x 2’ x 2 1/2’ wooden boxes packed with sawdust and moonshine,” remembers Everett.
Chester’s account also regards the operation as a rather open endeavor as well. In fact, he remembers that the 30-gallon drums the moonshine whiskey was shipped in were slyly labeled “Johnson’s Fruit Punch.”
Historian Jerry Brekke remembered a story told to him about Livingston moonshine and a local serviceman Carl Knoke who served in WWI. Knoke didn’t return immediately following the armistice but later on, way after prohibition began in 1919.
Knoke arrived in New York City and was wandering the streets looking for some goodwill. He was broke and waiting for a train to take him back to Montana. It was winter and Knoke was was not dressed warmly and said he looked as cold as he felt. As he walked the streets he ran into a policeman walking his beat. The officer noticed him and his destitute look and stopped to question him. When he found out the young kid was from Livingston, he let out a hearty laugh and reached in his overcoat pocket and pulled out a flask. He handed it to Knoke and insisted that he try some of Old Dom’s finest.
An Inevitable Epilogue
As these stories usually end, Old Dom and his partners Andy Botterud, Gene Rolleta and a Mr. Alkire (on whose ranch up Fleshman Creek was said to be the location of the major moonshine still supplying Old Dom) were all sent to prison in conjunction with a raid on the Albermarle.
Everett Johnson recalled riding his bicycle home from the Lincoln School when he ran into Mrs. “Billy” Frank in front of her store, Frank’s Clothing on Main Street, looking up the street toward the Albermarle.
She was quite worked up and told young Everett that the Feds were busting Old Dom. She was curious so she grabbed the boy and they snuck up the alley to the back of the hotel where, “A large open door in back was the biggest, blackest doorway of my life. Billy coaxed me into going in with her and it was piled high with 15 to 25 gallon barrels. It didn’t take me long to escape home.”
Everett notes that Gene Rotella, who was illiterate and who made the excellent moonshine known around the nation, said to Dom once they were imprisoned, “If it hadn’t been for you, Dom, I’d have been in the poor house.”
Livingston actually had a Poor Farm located out by where the 1-90 East interchange is now, and Rotella was not joking. Dom took good care of him. In fact, Rotella never left the sills in production and had been provided with a luxury camp full of the finest supplies Livingston had to offer.
As it goes with old smugglers, the Feds busted Old Dom not on his connection to the barrels of moonshine under the hotel, which certainly didn’t help, but on income tax evasion, or so said Everett Johnson.
Rum running made Dom quite rich and it appears he extended his trappings on to others. Aside from keeping Gene Rotella out of the poor house he “helped out” plenty of others around Livingston.
Stories of Dom buying a street urchin a new set of clothes, or lending money freely and generously have still stayed with his reputation. It would also follow logically that many of his “loans” were payoffs and hush money. After his arrest, a stranger was overheard as saying: “The best bank in Montana just went broke!”
For the most part the good folks of Livingston turned a blind eye to all the nefarious activity going on around town during Prohibition. Sure, some were well paid for this trait , while others simply benefitted by their favorite cocktail being readily available and of good quality. Certainly there were some folks who abhorred the whole lot and goings-on, but knew it was none of their business. Life in a small town is like that.
Now that the years have passed and Old Dom has faded into legend, those who do remember hearing of that time can think of those days with a wink and a smile while raising a drink of whiskey to their lips.
—Max Hjortsberg
Max Hjortsberg grew up in Paradise Valley and now lives in Livingston with his wife and son. He is the author of a new book of poetry “Bonnie & Clyde (An American Daydream)” now available from Finishing Line Press and local bookstores.
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