“Blind tigers” were a pressing concern in Wilson in 1911, as we see here and here and here and here. Descriptions of the operations of these joints inevitably came wrapped in the purplest prose.

Wilson Daily Times, 8 December 1911.

“With one gallon of liquor which costs $2.00, some red pepper steeped over night, the addition of a gallon of water, a little sweetening to make it mellow, a little cocaine to make you crazy and you have a good fighting fluid which yields a hundred per cent profit but goes to the lawyer who defends the seller, places the seller on the road and the consumer in the lockup, from $7.50 to $15.00 in the city treasury and later the consumer in his coffin if he keeps it up.”

The Knox Brothers, William and Wilton, operated a general store at 214 South Goldsboro Street. The 1913 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson shows a restaurant at 214, with a grocery at 216, which both perhaps were Knox businesses.

I have not been able to trace the enterprising Julius Webb.