The Volstead House: Father of Prohibition's Forgotten Legacy

The modest white house in Granite Falls belonged to Andrew Volstead, the Minnesota congressman whose name became synonymous with Prohibition. He was born in Kenyon, Minnesota, on October thirty-first, eighteen fifty-nine, studied at Saint Olaf College, became a lawyer, and served as mayor of Granite Falls from nineteen hundred to nineteen oh two. Volstead served ten terms representing Minnesota's seventh district, from nineteen oh three to nineteen twenty-three, and as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee he drafted the National Prohibition Enforcement Act of nineteen nineteen.

The law that Americans called the Volstead Act set the legal machinery for the Eighteenth Amendment in motion, defining what counted as an intoxicating beverage and giving federal agents authority to enforce the ban. Volstead sponsored the bill, working with Wayne Wheeler of the Anti-Saloon League. He also helped write the Capper-Volstead Act of nineteen twenty-two, which gave American farmers the legal right to form cooperatives.

He was the son of Norwegian American parents. The house is now a National Historic Landmark. Voters ended his congressional career in nineteen twenty-two, when he lost his bid for an eleventh term.

He went on to serve as legal adviser to the head of the National Prohibition Enforcement Bureau. After repeal in nineteen thirty-three he came home to Granite Falls, returned to private law practice, and died there on January twentieth, nineteen forty-seven, at the age of eighty-seven. His house stands at one sixty-three Ninth Avenue.