Milton G. Silver was a retired executive of the Genesee Brewing Company when he wrote these articles. Forty-five years earlier, he was present at the "Chateau" a Rochester speakeasy, on the night in 1929 when it was raided by police as a gambling establishment. Silver's series of articles on the Prohibition era in Monroe County, New York, and in Rochester in particular, was evidently reprinted in response to increasing interest in Prohibition-era history following the release of the film "The Great Gatsby" in 1974. The 1974 film starred Robert Redford and Mia Farrow.