Remember When: Wyoming Valley had a wild August 1926

Did you enjoy your vacation this year? I hope so.

If you haven’t gone anywhere, well, that is understandable with inflation and high gasoline prices.

So, as a special service that you will find only here, let me take you on an absolutely free guided visit to a great vacation spot.

Am I talking about the French Riviera? A European tour of medieval castles? Maybe Hawaiian beaches?

Well, no, not exactly. This excursion is about to leave for something even more wild and exotic – our own Wyoming Valley 100 years ago.

Fasten your seat belts, folks. This could be a bumpy ride.

First of all, let me apologize for the weather. August of 1926 opened with a wild and stormy couple of days during a blistering heat wave. Trees went down, electricity was cut, a bridge and numerous buildings were damaged, and there were injuries and fatalities.

Hope our tour bus can avoid road washouts, but you never know.

About all I can say is that at least there were no western wildfires filling our air with eye-irritating smoke and haze. That’s some consolation.

If we’re lucky, though, we’ll get to see some human-made excitement.

That’s because our tour group will find itself right in the middle of Luzerne County’s crusade against bootleg alcohol (national prohibition is in force) and its adjoining evil of gambling.

This concept might seem quaint to us, living as we do in an era where lifting a glass or more of booze while watching sports on big-screen TV and then driving off to a casino is just another night of fun and games.

If we plan things well here in 1926, though, we might be able to witness a raid of some sort in progress.

One Wilkes-Barre Record news story from August speaks of 5,000 gallons of alcohol-making materials seized and destroyed before they could be turned into moonshine.

Here’s the big question, though. Did the agents really crash a truck through the doors of the “distilleries” like Elliot Ness did in “The Untouchables” while waving his badge at the bad guys? I doubt that we will see dramatics like that, since these raids were so common as to be routine.

I think we’ll pass up the massive Ku Klux Klan parade (followed by a barbecue), though it is a piece of our early 20th-century history.

As always, much of Luzerne County’s excitement was political. In November, after a long and grueling campaign, voters in the boroughs of Parsons and Miners Mills approved a merger with the city of Wilkes-Barre. But voters in Kingston and Plains Township rejected such a merger in favor of keeping their independence.

Politics aside, we are just in time for what was likely the biggest and most enjoyable event of the year. The Record estimated a crowd of 50,000 people – many of Polish descent – gathered at the new Kirby Park for a giant outdoor party.

The occasion was nothing short of recognizing a watershed moment in American history – the 150th anniversary of the arrival in America of the Polish military man, statesman, and engineer Thaddeus Kosciuszko, who proved invaluable in helping the new U.S. nation fight for independence against the British.

You know, this event looks like so much fun and good fellowship that I’ll tell our bus driver (or whoever is hauling us around) that we’re going to be in the park awhile.

Wild weather, politics, and raids, begone. It’s party time, and our 21st century can wait.

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