The Bootlegger: A Story of Small-Town America

The title of this book should have been Small-Town America: The Story of a Bootlegger, because the town of Colchester, Ill., is the real subject and the bootlegger merely a character in the pageant of Colchester's history. A coal-mining community in the 19th century, Colchester became so imbued by death that inhabitants began to see a mysterious ""Woman in Black,"" an embodiment of the town's deepest anxieties. But the mines weren't the only place to die a violent death; drinking, gambling, and prostitution created a subpopulation of criminals and murderers, including Kelly Wagle, the bootlegger who was remembered by some as a philanthropist, others as a practical joker, still others as a remorseless killer, and who was gunned down by a rival hooch peddler in 1929. Significantly, the Woman in Black disappeared after all the coal was mined out and other, safer industries took over, though she came back in the 1920s to preside over the violence that accompanied the failed experiment of Prohibition. Today Colchester is ""a bedroom community for the county seat, a place to retire to where nothing much happens, and a gasoline stop."" Its history is a reminder that, if the past sometimes seems more colorful, that's because it was more terrible. Evidently life is so sleepy in Colchester these days that not even the Woman in Black goes there anymore. 33 photos, 5 linecuts. (Sept.)