Price Hill's Bootlegger

Next Wednesday, October 7, I’m going to be showing a presentation that the Delhi Historical Society has created about George Remus at the Price Hill Historical Society. Remus was an infamous resident of our neighborhood who lived in Price Hill during his brief but successful bootlegging career in the 1920s. People who remember his mansion talk about the covered swimming pool, the elaborate furnishings, and the horse barns. Remus’s base of operations for bootlegging was also on the west side, located in a big, undeveloped area on Lick Run (now Queen City Avenue) called “Death Valley.” Remus was born in Germany and came to Chicago as a child. He went to work as a pharmacist’s assistant when he was about 14. By the time he was 19, he owned the pharmacy, and then he went to law school and was a practicing lawyer by age 24. He was very successful, specializing in criminal law. When he saw how much money some of his clients were making in bootlegging when Prohibition was enacted, he decided to study the Volstead Act to find the loopholes that would allow him to make big money, too. He relocated to Cincinnati because it was more centrally located, and he was already quite wealthy when he moved here, so he bought the mansion in Price Hill and entertained lavishly as he began his bootlegging operations. He had a fleet of trucks to deliver the product and he owned a distillery that had closed at Prohibition where he made alcohol “for medicinal purposes.” At the height of his success, Remus is said to have employed 3,000 people and spent $20,000,000 in bribes to local police and officials—but his bootlegging profits have been estimated at anywhere from $45 to $75 million. (I’ll tell you more the next time I post a blog entry.)