Roy Olmstead

Biography

Early life Born in 1886 to farmers John and Sarah Olmstead, in Beaver City, Nebraska, Roy moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1904. Working in the Moran Brothers Co. shipyard before joining the Seattle Police Department on May 16, 1907, he was promoted to sergeant on April 5, 1910. His brothers Frank and Ralph were also on the Seattle force.

He ran his illegal operation like a business and before long he became one of the largest employers in Puget Sound. Known on the West Coast as "the Good Bootlegger", Olmstead did not engage in the practice of diluting his contraband with toxic industrial grade chemicals in order to increase his profits, selling only bonded liquor imported from Canada. To most other bootleggers, smuggling alcohol was but one facet of their criminal organization, and many were involved in prostitution, gambling, gun-running, and narcotics trafficking. Olmstead did not engage in these activities, and many did not regard him as a "true criminal" as a result. Despite the risks involved in rum-running, Olmstead did not allow his employees to carry firearms, telling his men he would rather lose a shipment of liquor than a life. came through, Olmstead married Elise Caroline Parché (aka Campbell), a Londoner who had worked for British Intelligence during World War I.

KFQX radio In early October 1924, Roy and Elise Olmstead started radio station KFQX, with the assistance of inventor Al Hubbard. Studios were built in the Smith Tower, but were seldom used. For the most part, Elise ran the station. Typical of stations of the time, it had a variety format. The most popular program was "Aunt Vivian," where Mrs. Olmstead as "Aunt Vivian" read bedtime stories for children, beginning at 7:15 at night. This led to a popular legend that Elise inserted coded language into her stories as signals for her husband's bootlegging network, for example pick up and drop-off locations. Elise was broadcasting from her home as usual on November 17, 1924, when the home was raided by government agents and KFQX was put off the air.

After the raid, the station was leased to Birt Fisher, who changed the call letters to KTCL. After Olmstead's liquor trial ended, he sold the station to Vincent Kraft who changed the call sign to KXA and moved the frequency from 570 to 770. The radio station later became an ABC affiliate.

Olmstead v. United States

Largely on the basis of evidence obtained through police wiretapping of his telephone, Olmstead was arrested and tried for conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act. and was released on May 12, 1931, with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporting: "He got the usual time off for good behavior, but aside from this, he served his full term plus thirty days for the $8,000 fine assessed against him." He moved back to Seattle to be with his wife and daughter, Patricia (aka Patsy), where he worked as an insecticides salesman and fumigator. On December 25, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt granted him a full presidential pardon. Besides restoring his constitutional rights, the pardon remitted $100,000 the IRS claimed he owed in unpaid liquor taxes.

While in prison, Olmstead became a Christian Science practitioner and a carpenter, later working with prison inmates in the Puget Sound area on an anti-alcoholism agenda. He was a vibrant and active community member for his remaining years, teaching Sunday school and visiting prisoners in the King County Jail every Monday morning. Olmstead and his wife separated in 1940, citing personal and religious differences, and they divorced in 1943. Roy Olmstead died April 30, 1966, at the age of 79.