Moonshine Violence at Vernita
A ranch manager, reportedly intoxicated on moonshine, threatened his wife and cook with a meat cleaver, sparking a local incident.
Evidently crazed from the drinking of moonshine liquor, F. J. Coyle, manager of the von Herberg ranch at Vernita, chased the woman cook and his wife from the ranch with a cleaver and raised a general disturbance at the place. The women went to the Otto Jaeger home, where they stayed until Mr. von Herberg’s theatrical manager from Yakima came over Saturday and took them back with him. Sheriff James Shepherd came over from Prosser Sunday and took Coyle back with him and placed him in the hospital in Prosser for treatment. He left the hospital Thursday morning and is said to have come over to the ranch to get his personal belongings, Mr. von Herberg in the meantime having placed another man in charge of the ranch.
“Evidently crazed from the drinking of moonshine liquor, F. J. Coyle... chased the woman cook and his wife from the ranch with a cleaver.”
This violent episode highlights the unpredictable and often dangerous social consequences of the Prohibition era's illicit 'moonshine' trade in rural Washington. While moonshine is a relic of the 1920s, the struggle to regulate substance-related violence in isolated communities remains a persistent civic challenge.
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