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Elise Olmstead, Seattle, ca. 1926
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| Title | Elise Olmstead, Seattle, ca. 1926 |
| Photographer | Staff Photographer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer |
| Date | ca 1926 |
| Caption | Elise Olmstead, originally from England, was the second wife of Roy Olmstead, one of the largest and most successful bootleggers in King County during the 1920s Prohibition years. Learning how the trade operated from involvement in raids and arrests while serving as a Seattle Police Lieutenant, Olmstead began his own operation. After an arrest and dismissal from the Seattle Police Force, he was able to devote all his time to his operations which eventually grew to include many vessels, trucks, warehouses, and employees importing liquor from Canada. Elise and Roy established the American Radio Telephone Company which they operated from their home in Seattle's Mount Baker neighborhood. It was suspected that the children's bedtime hour was used to relay coded messages to the various rumrunners employed.
Suspicious of the activities, federal agents employed surveillance techniques and wiretapping to arrest Elise, Roy, and nine other men in 1924. After an initial Federal Grand Jury indictment in 1925, the 1926 trial proceedings at the time of this photograph were the largest in the country's history of liquor violations starting out with 47 defendants. Elise was acquitted, however, Olmstead was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison and fined $8, 000. After losing his appeal, Olmstead served his time at McNeil Island Penitentiary and was released in 1932.
Having converted to the Christian Science faith in prison, and now believing that alcohol was destructive, Olmstead spent his remaining years counseling and teaching from the Bible, providing rehabilitative services to Puget Sound inmates, and operating a ministry from the Times Square Building until his death in 1966. Elise divorced Olmstead on the grounds of desertion without cause in 1943. |
| Notes | Caption information source: HistoryLink.org. |
| Subjects | Prohibition--Washington (State)--Seattle |
| Personal Names | Olmstead, Elise |
| Places | United States--Washington (State)--Seattle |
| Digital Collection | Museum of History & Industry Photograph Collection |
| Image Number | 1986.5G.2278 |
| Ordering Information | To order a reproduction or to inquire about permissions contact photos@mohai.org or phone us at 206-324-1126. Please refer to the Image Number and provide a brief description of the photograph. |
| Credit Line | Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection, Museum of History & Industry, Seattle; All Rights Reserved |
| Repository | Museum of History & Industry, Seattle (MOHAI) |
| Repository Collection | Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection |
| Type | Image |
| Physical Description | 1 glass negative: b&w; 4 x 5 in. |
| Digital Reproduction Information | Scanned from original negative as a 3000 pixel TIFF image in 8-bit grayscale, resized to 600 pixels in the longest dimension and compressed into JPEG format using Photoshop 6.0 and its JPEG quality measurement 3. |
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