Bureau of Prohibition
US law enforcement agency
The Bureau of Prohibition (or Prohibition Unit) was the United States federal law enforcement agency with the responsibility of investigating the possession, distribution, consumption, and trafficking of alcohol and alcoholic beverages in the United States of America during the Prohibition era. The enumerated enforcement powers of this organization were vested in the Volstead Act. Federal prohibition agents of the Bureau were commonly referred to by members of the public and the press of the day as "prohis," or "dry agents." In the sparsely populated areas of the American west, agents were sometimes called "Prohibition Cowboys." At its peak, the bureau employed 2,300 dry agents.
History
Volstead Act and formation in the Department of the Treasury
Prohibition Unit
The Prohibition Unit was formed to enforce the National Prohibition Act of 1919 (Volstead Act) which enforced the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution regarding the prohibition of the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. When it was first established in 1920, it was a unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. The commissioner of Internal Revenue, Daniel C. Roper, strenuously objected to absorbing the responsibilities of managing a prohibition organization, as he believed they were beyond the scope and mandate of his Bureau which had primarily been responsible for investigating tax violations.
Initially, there were 960 dry agents in the Prohibition Unit.
Elevation to Bureau status
House Resolution 10729, passed by the 69th Congress, became law on March 3, 1927 and simultaneously created two new bureaus out of Treasury's efforts: the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Prohibition. The new bureau would consist of a commissioner of prohibition, an assistant commissioner, two deputy commissioners, a chief clerk, and their staffs. On April 1, 1927, with 10729 becoming effective, the organizational restructuring was officially completed, and prohibition was elevated from Unit status to Bureau status.
“Bureau of Prohibition” enters the record as uS law enforcement agency. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bureau, Prohibition and enforcement can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Bureau of Prohibition” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Bureau, Prohibition and enforcement provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1267104. VIAF identifies the subject as 157554136. The Library of Congress control number is nr94020206. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1919, 1920 and 1927.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bureau of Prohibition” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.