Butt's Speakeasy

 One hundred years ago, this place was a speakeasy. 

 The B & E Lounge at 1022 Oregon Street, Oshkosh.

It was raided in 1922, two years after the start of Prohibition. The proprietor, 40-year old August Butt, was arrested and fined for selling moonshine.

August Butt and his wife Bertha.

A couple years later, Butt opened another speakeasy. This one was hidden in the back of a building at the SW corner of 9th and South Main.

The southwest corner of 9th and South Main. Butt's speakeasy here was locared in the back of the building.

Butt got busted for selling booze there in 1925. That arrest earned him a three-month stay in the House of Corrections in Milwaukee. When he got out of jail, Butt returned to Oshkosh and his wife Bertha. And that was the end of his career in the illicit liquor business. He went back to his old woodworking job. August Charles Wilhelm Butt died in Oshkosh in 1957. He was 75 years old.