Prohibition In Rockingham County

Exploring a Digital Archive

Image of HBD Officers 1925 courtesy of hpd-history (https://www.flickr.com/photos/harrisonburgva/6958914163/in/album-72157629525878481)

Prohibition in Rockingham County: Exploring a Digital Archive, features 6,379 court records from the Prohibition era in Rockingham County (1913 – 1933.) These records are now part of the broader Exploring Rockingham’s Past (ERP) initiative—a partnership between James Madison University and the Rockingham County Circuit Courthouse; designed to preserve and showcase local historical court records.

Explore the Documents

The Rockingham Prohibition Records are organized into five sub-collections or series:

Criminal Cases
Affidavits for Ardent Spirits
Liquor Inventory
Liquor License Applications
General Records

No. of Documents

No. of Scans

Explore the Records

Dive into local Prohibition era legal records to discover the stories of Prohibition!

The Rockingham County Prohibition Records were “discovered” by Chaz Haywood (Rockingham Circuit Court Clerk) as part of his ongoing effort to preserve the historical records.

go to the Records

The Rockingham County Courthouse, completed in 1897, has little room for public access to its trove of historic documents.
The boxes of court records related to prohibition were taken from crowded courthouse storage to JMU’s Carrier Library.
In JMU Special Collections, documents needing mild flattening were placed under stacks of thick glass plate for long periods of time.
Renessa Rabenda, a preservation student assistant, uses a screw press to flatten more stubborn documents
Every document was assessed, flattened or repaired if needed, and placed into acid-free, folders for long-term stability and research access.
Scanning both sides of each page insures that no additional markings, notes, or information was missed in the scanning process.
The scans were processed with optical character recognition (OCR) software, so most of the typed text in these documents can now be searched in the online collection
The folders were then placed in organized, labelled, acid-free archival boxes for return to the courthouse.

An overview

Welcome to Prohibition in Rockingham County: Exploring a Digital Archive!

Explore the stories of Prohibition through a digital collection of legal records dedicated to providing a glimpse into a unique era of American History at the local level.

go to the overview

Prohibition in Rockingham County: Exploring a Digital Archive is an Exploring Rockingham’s Past (ERP) Project

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