Searching for Prohibition’s Bootlegging Widows

BUTTE, MONTANA—A team of University of Montana archaeologists is at work in the historic Butte neighborhood known as the Cabbage Patch searching for Prohibition-era artifacts left behind by widows who took on the role of bootleggers. The impoverished community was occupied by lower class mining families during the Prohibition Era. Widows who lost their husbands to mining accidents were known to take up the making of moonshine just to get by, often with the tacit approval of law enforcement. Led by archaeologist Kelli Casias, the team plans on excavating three sites in Butte. Should they find enough artifacts from the era, “it'll change our perspective on Prohibition," Casias told NBC News Montana. "It will change the whole story completely." For more on the archaeology of immigrant settlements in the West, go to "America's Chinatowns."