7/8/2008:
Melvin Pervis and Elliot Ness were well known names in the fight against Prohibition in Chicago. Long before them, on the plains of North Dakota, there was an agent on whose head the Eastern mobs had placed a $15,000 bounty. The Reverend Frank L. Watkins was well known by the bootleggers who both hated and respected him for his tenacity and cunning. He became the head of the state’s fight against prohibition violations in 1916, and by 1920, was the Superintendent of the North Dakota Law Enforcement League. North Dakota had entered the Union as a dry state in 1889. Early enforcement efforts had centered upon the illegal stills or on the alcohol brought into the state by train or car but mainly on a smaller basis. With the advent of the national prohibition, the stakes became higher and more deadly.
Watkins favored the Minot area as the center for his enforcement activities since it was the hub in the liquor running industry. It had a well developed "red light" district already teeming with illegal booze and prostitution and was located near the Canadian border with plenty of back roads to handle the traffic. Watkins generally carried his 30-30 rifle but was more widely known for his submachine-gun. The liquor traffic ran between the Canadian border and Minneapolis, with some eventually finding its way to Chicago. Well-armed men with high speed Dodges ran the back roads down from Canada carrying as much as 400 pounds of alcohol under the back seat for $10.00 a trip but rum running was dangerous work. As one Canadian runner explained, "South of the border, they played for keeps."
The Reverend Frank Watkins was efficient at his work and responsible for the arrests of many bootleggers. He often used disguises or ambushed booze cars at night and he used a para-military style in his raids. It was said that at the height of prohibition, "the gun wielding minister started a new case every day." There was tension between him and the federal agents whom he claimed were not doing their job and they counter claimed that Watkins was overly active, stopping anything that moved at the point of a gun. Watkins was a crack shot with his rifle and at some point in the 1920's picked up the moniker, "Shoot-to-Kill Watkins," possibly in a shoot out with a rum runner from Omaha who was killed near Valley City.
On this date in 1940, with Prohibition over, the Reverend Frank L. Watkins, at age 71, died in bed with his boots off. The $15,000 price on his head placed by the gangsters went uncollected.
By Jim Davis
Sources:
Minot Daily News July 12, 1940