"It doesn't require liquor, after all, to assure the success of a New Year's celebration, as thousands of Erieites proved Friday night."
The pronouncement by the Erie Dispatch Herald — on Jan. 1, 1921, after the first New Year's Eve of Prohibition — seemed half-hearted.
But for Erieites in that new year, the continuing prohibition against alcohol was one of just a few clouds on the horizon.
The city was in the midst of a building boom.
Women had voted for the first time in the November presidential election, helping to elect Warren Harding.
Army aviators had flown 9,000 miles from New York to Nome, Alaska, in 111 hours over three months and one week, blazing the way for more postal air service routes.