On January 17, 1919, the Joplin Globe reported on the don of Prohibition in America as Missouri became the 37th state to ratify the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, effectively banning the sale of alcohol. The 36th state, Nebraska, brought the country to the three-fourths majority required to make it official.

Prohibition was in place by January 1920, ushering in the era of roaring speakeasies and notorious gangsters.

Just a decade earlier, in January 1910, the temperance movement initiated the "hardest fought election ever held in Joplin," in which wets narrowly defeated drys to keep Joplin saloons in business.

Excerpt from the extra edition of the Joplin News Herald on January 27, 1910. Voters decided to continue allowing saloons. JOPLIN GLOBE ARCHIVES

Excerpt from the Joplin News Herald extra on January 27, 1910. JOPLIN GLOBE ARCHIVES

Once the Great Depression hit in 1929, economies needed a boost, the government needed tax dollars, and, perhaps, weary Americans just needed a drink. Prohibition was repealed in 1933.

Excerpt of the December 6, 1933 edition of the Joplin Globe featuring a story on the end of Prohibition. JOPLIN GLOBE ARCHIVES

Full versions of these and many other front pages and historic photographs can be found in the Joplin Globe's new hardbound, large-format book, "Greater Joplin Through Our Eyes: 120 Years of Front Pages & Photos from the Globe and its Readers."