page_title: Saturn Club
section_title: Prohibition
hierarchical_section_title: Saturn Club / Prohibition
caption_attribution_description: English: Front page of the Buffalo Courier from August 29, 1923
context_page_description: Saturn Club is a private social club, founded in 1885, in Buffalo in Erie County, New York that currently operates out of an NRHP building at 977 Delaware Ave. in Buffalo, New York.
context_section_description: During the early years of Prohibition, Saturn had a bar and a bartender, but did not provide drinks. On advice from its lawyers, members could keep items, unquestioned, in private lockers and order all the ingredients for a drink, without spirits, to be passed into the club's rooms through a small sliding door.
  On August 29, 1923, Federal agents under William J. Donovan, who himself was a member of the club, raided both the Saturn Club and the Country Club of Buffalo.  Agents found at least sixty quarts of whisky, a similar amount of gin, five gallons of moonshine, bottles of champagne, vermouth, and other liquors inside the organization's lockers, according to court documents.  The chair of the club's house committee told reporters the night of the raid that the liquor “evidently was smuggled in by bootlegging employees of the club.”
  A listing of those charged with dry law violations was published in the newspaper  After the names were published, the members and the club had little option but to agree to a settlement and do away with the sliding doors.
caption: Front page of the Buffalo Courier from August 29, 1923
exif: {}