Eras are time periods that are identified by events and people who are associated to those times. One of the most written-about eras in US history is the Prohibition Era (1919 -1933).

The prohibition of the possession, manufacturing, or sale of beverage and non-beverage alcohol other than “medicinal” and industrial use alcohol was ushered in by the 18th Amendment to the Constitution on January 16, 1919. It left enforcement in the hands of Congress and the “several states,” which immediately led to confusion with both federal and state laws, often in conflict, to control the illegal behavior. That was corrected by the passage of the Volstead Act on January 17, 1920, which gave that authority to the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service. 

Many new terms became household words—speakeasy, resort, Blind Pig, house of ill repute—to identify places of most violations. Titles of enforcement officers of were “Dry Cops” and “Revenuers” for the Prohibition Enforcement and “Feds” for the FBI. The TV series “Untouchables” with Howard Stack as Eliot Ness, and Ness’s antagonist Ralph Nitti, played by Bruce Gordon. Nitti was the Chief enforcer of the Al Capone gang. In reality, Ness was the Chief of the Revenue Enforcement unit reporting to a Special Prosecutor in the Department of Revenue in Chicago, not part of the FBI. Chillicothe was no different than most communities with regard to compliance with the new prohibition laws. It took a while for the community’s response to the liquor ban to be acknowledged but by late 1922, raids by “Dry Cops” and “Revenuers” began to appear in the Chillicothe Bulletin. The death of the bartender in the Rome Roadhouse in 1925 pretty well exposed the fact that the Chillicothe area had its own element of the underworld.

On March 14, 1928, Jonie Anderson Yelm, 48, came to Chillicothe and bought a house on First Street, across the alley and 42 feet north of the City Hall. It was on a small 30-foot wide by 165-foot lot for which he put $225 down and mortgaged the balance of $1,000 for five years at 7 percent. That was a monthly payment of $5.00. Yelm was born in Elmore, Illinois, and began working as a farmer but moved to Peoria and became a clerk in a Piggly-Wiggly Grocery store on McReynolds Street in Peoria by 1922. 

Yelm’s occupation was not disclosed when he bought the house, but it soon became a point of concern for local police, City fathers, and the Editor of the Bulletin. Yelm had brought illegal alcohol to town and a number of women to occupy the house. Local and area males were quick to take advantage of the services Yelm provided. At about the same time, Joseph Ehrlich, a Russian-born citizen, had purchased a similar property at what was then 111 S. First. Ehrlich ran a junking business in the lots south of his house. 

Soon after Yelm moved to Chillicothe in 1928, unknown to local population, Peoria County Sheriff had ordered a Negress Madame of a “Black and Tan” house of ill repute in Peoria to leave the county and not return. She had fallen from grace of the powers in Peoria under the control of Mayor E.N. Woodruff. When she left Peoria, she quietly moved into Yelm’s house and continued to follow her profession. When the Sheriff learned she was in Chillicothe, he sent two deputies to Yelm’s house to enforce the “Blow the County Order.”  But the deputies didn’t cover the back door, and she made her escape. Her role at Yelm’s house was clear, but the relationship between them was still not clear. Several months later, the madam was once again operating The Oasis, a “Black and Tan” Resort at 200-202 Eaton Street in Peoria.

The madame was Lillian Guyette, but she preferred to be called “Diamond Lil.”  A short, small black woman with bright white hair, was a veteran of the sexual services trade, having been working in Peoria with permission of the Peoria “machine” since the mid-1920s. Besides her white hair, her most impressive physical feature was three diamonds that a Peoria dentist had set on her teeth. Squabbles between Yelm and Ehrlich resorts continued after Guyette left, but bigger exciting things were still to come for Jonie and Lil.