New Year’s Day in Chicago 1926 felt like peak 1920s. The common tropes of the “Jazz Age” congealed on the front page of Tribune: “Gay, Wet New Year’s: 11 Shot – Prosperous U.S, Forecast by 1925 Success” barked the headline. Front page stories reported that the manufacturing and consumption were driving demand-side growth to new levels. Meanwhile, casual gunplay celebrating New Year’s Eve resulted in one dead child and multiple woundings. And at the height of Prohibition, citizens and journalists openly mocked officials trying to enforce alcohol bans in the local nightclubs. According to The Trib, two barely guised Prohibition agents were assigned to each club, while revelers succeeded in hiding their hooch throughout the night. One club crowd had had enough and chased the agents out the door. The cops refused to intervene, claiming that they wanted to remain “neutral.”

And so it went in Chicago, 1926. Boom time optimism was winding up to the wild speculation and overconfidence that would crash in 1929. Gunfire in Al Capone’s city was familiar. And open defiance of Prohibition challenged respect for all official authority. Corruption was the system.

And in the funny pages of 1926, The Chicago Daily Tribune featured some of the country’s favorite characters engaging in the party to comic effect. The Gasoline Alley gang, Harold Teen, Smitty, Moon Mullins – all share their New Year’s Eve tales.

Harold Teen Sleeps Through It

Smitty’s Day Off?

Wash Tubbs’ Resolutions

Moon Muillins Ties One On

In Gasoline Alley Walt Keeps His Head

Hoping For A Girl