Agnes Szabo came of age in South Bend in the early 1920s, when the Volstead Act had driven liquor sales underground and bootlegging routes became as common as postal deliveries. The post-World War I years were marked by economic volatility—wartime industries contracted, inflation soared, and many working-class families, especially immigrants, scrambled for new forms of income. In this climate of uncertainty, illicit trade often provided quicker and more reliable returns than conventional employment. Raised first in a saloon and then a so-called “soft drink parlor” (a Prohibition Era euphemism for a speakeasy), Agnes grew up in a world where the line between legal refreshment and illegal liquor was already pretty fuzzy. By the time she was a teenager, those distinctions had all but disappeared.
With her siblings in tow and cash in hand, Szabo shuttled whiskey between Chicago and South Bend in a Hudson sedan—on roads that were often more battlefield than boulevard. What shielded her was not only the youth and familial innocence she projected, but her deft ability to exploit the gender norms of the day. A teenage girl with “little tots” – her younger siblings – in the backseat rendered her invisible to the bootleg kingpins. And that was precisely her advantage.
Yet Szabo’s role in Indiana’s illicit economy was anything but peripheral. She operated at the wholesale level, paying up to $2,700 in cash for 135 cases of confiscated liquor—liquor that had been seized during raids, only to be resold to her by the very officers and city judges who were supposed to enforce the law. Her purchasing was facilitated by figures like Constable Dan Melloy, who not only sold her seized whiskey but once personally escorted her to Chicago for a resupply.
And it wasn’t only the liquor that moved through this network, but envelopes of cash, favors, and influence. For a while, Szabo operated with impunity. But as in many stories involving underestimated women, her own confidence became her undoing. While most bootleggers were busy bribing cops and praying their flasks wouldn’t clink too loudly, Szabo was flaunting her diamond rings and Alaskan seal coat like the protagonist of a very illegal Gatsby party.
She boasted openly about her success, and soon a rival or jealous acquaintance tipped off the authorities. When federal agents arrested her in 1921, Szabo responded not with silence or shame, but with a detailed account of a system riddled with corruption. She named names. And the names she gave would rattle the very foundations of local government. Over sixty officials were indicted in the aftermath, including Gary’s Mayor Boswell O. Johnson, City Judge William Dunn, the Lake County prosecutor, police officers, detectives, and even former sheriffs. Their charges ranged from liquor violations to conspiracy to obstruction of justice and rigged local elections.
She had, in effect, exposed a system of government in which the law existed as a source of profit, not justice. Federal Judge Albert B. Anderson, who presided over her case, called Szabo “an extraordinary criminal.” But his response revealed he felt conflicted. Anderson sentenced her to six months, then reconsidered. He let her go home before serving her time, his instincts caught between punishment and paternalism. Anderson’s musings on indicting “entire families” and his eventual decision to let Szabo return home before serving time reflected a legal system struggling to reconcile its deeply-gendered expectations of guilt, repentance, and protection.
Szabo defied the conventional wisdom that women turned to crime because of male influence, instead taking ownership of her actions. In court, Szabo made it crystal clear that bootlegging was her choice and hers alone. She declared without a hint of hesitation that even if her mother had forbidden it, she’d have done it anyway. Judge Anderson wasn’t buying the lone-wolf act and suspected she had help, but Agnes stood firm. She even claimed that 75% of South Bend was in on the bootlegging trade. She wasn’t a pawn; she was a player. She was the “Queen of the Booze Runners,” a “flapper bootlegger,” a folk hero and a femme fatale rolled into one.
Szabo exposed how the law had already been broken by those entrusted to uphold it. In telling her story, we see a young woman who refused to play the roles assigned to her. She was neither criminal accessory nor courtroom victim. She was a central figure in a chapter of American history too often told without women’s names. After the scandal, Agnes tried to step out of the spotlight. In 1923, she stood outside a courthouse and declared, “No more liquor for the Szabo family. It is bad business, and I am through for all time.” Her attempted retreat from public life was framed not as redemption, but as abdication. She had become too powerful a symbol to quietly disappear. But the federal government wasn’t done watching her. When her family relocated to a rural farm and resumed their liquor operation, Judge Anderson filed an injunction to shut it down.
She operated within a male-dominated criminal enterprise, but refused to hide behind it. She used her youth and femininity as camouflage, but never performed helplessness. She was both scapegoat and whistleblower, criminal and reformer. In exposing Prohibition’s failures—she disrupted a patriarchal operation that had grown far too comfortable assuming women would stay silent.
Sources:
* Newspapers accessed via Hoosier State Chronicles and Chronicling America (Library of Congress).
“Gary Bootleg Ring Strongest in the State,” Richmond Palladium, January 15, 1923.
“Revelations of Gary ‘Bootleg Queen’ Land Scores of Officials in Dry Net,” Richmond Palladium, January 25, 1923, 8.
“Conviction Spurs Citizens’ League in Bootleg War,” Indianapolis Times, April 2, 1923.
“Agnes Szabo Is a Witness,” The Lake County Times, December 11, 1922, 3.
The Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram, September 15, 1921, 10.
The Indianapolis Times, March 15, 1923, 2.
“Gary City Officials Divide Seized Booze,” The Indianapolis Times, March 15, 1923, 1.
“Girl of 18 Called Bootlegger Queen,” The Indianapolis Times, January 19, 1923, 2.
“Girl Queen of Booze Runners Quits Trade,” The Indianapolis Times, December 9, 1922, 12.
“Gary Mixed Up in Liquor Conspiracy,” The Lake County Times, November 30, 1921, 1.
“Calls Herself Flapper Bootlegger,” Decatur Daily Democrat, January 15, 1923.
