Long before downtown Oxford became a semi-bar district, as some would say, before fraternity row moved to the Square, drinking liquor came with certain rules, written and unspoken. 

Granddad Cofield said that no self-respecting Square business owner drank whiskey before 5 p.m., they drank vodka… customers couldn’t smell it. Bootleggers eased in from Memphis runs, on the backroads. That was in the daylight. 

When the sun went down and the party wasn’t ready to die, it was to the county line they trekked, again, on the back roads. 

Locals, frat boys, and county sippers knew that the highways to New Albany, Pontotoc, and Water Valley were dry runs. 

But the trips out Hwy. 6 to Batesville or up 7 to Holly Springs were toasted all the way back to town. 

This 1961 Martin Dain photograph perfectly captured a time lost to time.