Following a surge in illegal gambling during the Prohibition era and Roaring '20s, municipalities across the country began cracking down during the Great Depression. Just as caches of alcohol were often dumped out in public displays during Prohibition, confiscated gambling paraphernalia was sometimes smashed up for a similar effect.

Police officers breaking slot machines on April 18th, 1936. Mason City Public Library Archives

This is just one of the hundreds of historic images to be found in the Globe Gazette's hardbound, heir-loom quality coffee-table book, Mason City and Clear Lake Memories: The 1800s - 1930s.