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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
September 24, 1964     Shelton Mason County Journal
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September 24, 1964
 
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! • "1% 24, 1964 WASHINGTON CORRECTIONS CENTER SUPPLEMENT TO SHELTON--MASON COUNTY JOURNAIJI I state of :hone Imrtions and Monta- Continental from Ore- as the ~Arash- population was small Soon af- was achieved, ravaged east and Mountains. of the Pa- deepened by the eastern War, anct corn- Proprietors en- life and lm'e the rails rail- embraced area, fronl the Canada and Ocean to the Transpor- solitudes Indian pony primeval green Seaboard by iwash buggy" dugout ca- The were peo- pion- to where by dint of such parties, unseasonal Their in- to ban- of frontier man- inclinations, and distance 'appeals to the at prcven- crimc, the Were frequent- as the con- the pioneers ~arly Seat- to foun- names have in streets, Uildings, tak- against petty of whisky tc the whipping- lers, if appre- Were gen- forthwith by to the sur- and Were not agg, evatcd be ex- modern lit- West," a cnt tree were supporters of mty govern- hedin Wash- )linty seats so that they Within a day's by most of it' jurisdic- being the more pop- them- located in ~ree, Thurston When a cri- felony, he county jail reed. ~ase m popu- lation of the territory, and con- sequent increase in the numbm of criminal convictions had made this sysl.em inadequate. It was necessary to confine some of the sm'plus prisoners in the old Hud- son's Bay Company jail at Steil- acoom, in the custody of John D. McAllister. (The McAllister fan> ily were members of the "Sim- mons Party," of 1946, the first white settlers to locate in the Puget Sound region). The legislature of that year rec- ognized the necessity of provid. ing a central prison for the cus- tody of convicted felons. Consider- ation was given to an offer by the Federal government to turn over to the Territory the Feder- al Penitentiary on McNeil Island, for a total cost of $36,000, payable over a number of years. Two in- dependent counter-proposals were made by William Billings, sheriff of Thurston County, and Jerry Smith, sheriff of Pierce Connty. Both men offered to construct prison and take custody of all prisoners, in return for a subsis- tance allowance from the terri- tory and the right to the labor of the convicts. AI,THOU6R slavery had been abolished a decade earlier, there were many who remembered its profitable aspects. The contract labor proposals of Billings and Smith wcre potentially cven more lucrative, for they not only pro- vided a sizeable labor force of un- paid convicts, but regular pay- ments for the territorial treasmw to provide for their maintenance. Soon the legislature was beset by a horde of public-spirited citizens, all anxious to relieve the territory of its custodial problems. Alarmed, Billings and Smith combined their proposals and political influence, and the contract was eventually given to them. The contract, made out on Bil- ling's name, was of six years du- ration and provided for the keep- ing of all' territorial prisoners, giving the contractors 70 cents per day for each prisoner, all pro- ceeds from their labor, and pro- viding for transportation of con- victed felons to the prison at pub- lic expense. Lacking capital, they formed a three-way partnership with Oli- ver Shead, who had land in tim Skookumchuck Valley, 17 miles south of Olympia. Shead provided $4,000 with which was built a two story wooden prison, painted yellow. Accounts vary considerably as to the exact size of this structure. C. T. Conover, Northwest historian writing in the Seattle Times, gave the dimensions as 30 x 80 feet. Frank C. Ward, who was a guard for three ycars at the prison, in an article appearing on May 10, 1935, in the Tenino Thurston Cmm- ty Independent, recalled the size of the bnilding as 60 x 120 fcet. Gcorge W. France, and inmate of the prison for seven years, and the author of a book published in 1890, "Struggles For Life and Home in the Northwest", largely devoted to an account of his pri- son life and denunciation of the. alleged conspiracy which had re- suited in his ten-year sentence for manslaughter, gave the dimensions as 40 x 150 feet. France, certain- ly, had the most prolonged oppor- tmfity to pace off the distances accurately. It wa,'; built of heavy fir planks, either 3 x 12 or 4 x 12, laid llor- izontally, and bolted togelher with iron bolts. The lower floor of the structure contained 32 eells, faced with iron bars, and partiti,med by 3 x 6 planks laid and bolted in the same manner as the outer walls. Although designed to pro- vide minimum space for two in- mates, the original inmate popu. lation of 38 had reached 93 by 1887, so it was api)arcnt t~at most of these cells housed three men. The only entrance to the prison was by means of an outside stair- way to the second, floor, and a second stairway leading to the cell area. The room for storing oil, paint and kerosene, and the tahle used for filling lamps was located just inside the single, second-fh)or door. Surprisingly, 'this potential fire-trap lasted many years after its abandonment as a prison, part of it being used as a social hall by the residents of the area. Tlti'] UPI'EI~ FLOOR was des- cribed as containing "a hall, 22 x 90 feet, dining-room, kitchen, tai- lor and shoe shop, and guard's quarters." France wrote that "For the last several years the big hall in the prison, when all were in it, resembled a western saloon ex- cept the bar; card playing, with Faro and other gambling games, checkers, chess, etc.: reading and talking, chewing and smoking, and sometimes singing and dancing, with an occasional fight." One unfortunate female prison- er, an Indian woman, with her three children, occupied a shanty outside the prison proper fro' two- and-a-half years, the contractors realizing only 60 cents per day for the children:s "board", and pre- sumably trimming their rations accordingly. Of the prison fare, France wrote "They did their own butchering at Seatco, and so grasping were these charitable brethren that they~ (lid this on Sunday, and they fre- qnently used stock that had been killed by the raih'oad or was suf- fering from disease. They would kill beef and salt it down a year ahead, using too much saltpetre; and then it would often bc spoiled. It was like hog feed, and old po- tatoes were sometimes uscd two or three months after their sea- son." In writing of his first day at the terrilorial prison,. France said, "When the pris,mers came in from work, the sight and clatter of chains x~:'~s deafening and damna- ble, nearly all being m heavy dou- ble irons, riveted to then" legs, wearing them day and night, sick or well--all the time." Even Guard Ward, who did not have to wear them, in after years recalled "the terrible chains riveted to the an- kles of the prisoners;" the per- manent irons which "broke down many a good man and caused more to jump away than they kept from it." FOLLOVVING a startling expose by the "Seattle Chronicle" of pen- ology as practiced at Seat.co, the governor recomnmnded to the leg- islature that "removable irons" be provided for the inmates. Af- tel' a delay of tluee or four years these were provi(lcd, but in the meantime the use of the notorious "Rinquist boots" continued. The invention of a Steilacoom blacksn]ith named Rinquist, they were first used to restrain patients entmmted to the tender care of the terrilorial "Hospital for the lnsane" at Stcilaeoom. These e,m- sisted ,)f iron cliffs riveted to each ankle and fastened together by a long chain. Each weighed from 10 to 18 pmmds, but it: was pointed out that, as a concession to the humauities, the iron cuffs were "padded about the ankles." The nse of permanent irons was regarded by the contractors as an economy measure, their use lnak- ing it possible to limit the nighl guard force to a single man, who pmldently remained upstairs near the exit. In addition to working at log- ging and coal mining, inmates were employed in a sawmill and cooperage factory established neat the ln-ison site. As some of the machinery in these pioneer indust- rial plants was controlled by foot- pedals, the heavy irons made it difficult for the operators to con- trol their machines, and accidents wm~ frequent. France writes of one man whose fingers were badly mangled in the machinery and later amputat- ed by the prison "doctor," the son of the current territorial gov- ernor, who used a common car- penter's saw for the operation, There was no provision for a pris- on hospital, the institution's sick and injured being ministered to in the shoe shop. PUNISHMENT was only slight- ly less painful than medical treat- ment at Seatco. Solitary confine- men* was little used, for it de- prived the contractors of the pris- oner's wages. Bread and water, on the other hand, was freqimntly prescribed for minor infractions, its use added to the profit de- rived from the 70 cents-per-day territorial subsistance allowance. Blows and kicks administered informally by the guards were .~ popular correctional procedure, and the whipping post was fre- quently in use. More imaginative procedures were ,apparently re- sorted to at times, France writ- ing in considerable detail of an articulate inmate named Strong, who upon the occasion of a visit to the prison of a legislative in- vestigating committee "Addressed them a.t length, showing up the cruelties and corruptions in an able and interesting manner." Following the withdrawal of the legislators, according to Franc.e, prison officials pointed out to Strong the error of his ways by removing nine of his teeth with a pair of pliers. I)IIRING THE FIRST years of the Seatco pri.ion, Contractor Shead acted as warden, but as the enterprise prospered financially, a hired superintendent was placed in charge. As evil reports of pri- son abuses continued to circulate, denmnds were made that a quali- fied prison warden be appointed and paid by the territory. An ap- propriation of $600 per year was made for the salary x)f such an of- ficial. The territorial governor then appointed the former em- ployee of the contractors to con- tinue in charge, the net result be- ing .an additional profit of $600 pet' year to those enterprising cit- izens. The territory's experiment in a "free enterprisc" prison system ended after 13 years, but not with- out determined opposition from those who had profited from it, and their political allies. Legisla- lion entitled "An Act to provide for the permanent location and construction of a Territorial Pen- itentiary at Walls VCalla." was passed on Jan. 2, 1886. Gov. Watson C. Squire appointed three building commissioners, Gen- eral M. M. Bane of Spokane Falls, O. C. White of Dayton m~d H. E. Johnson of Walla Walla. The com- n dssioners visited the Oregon Pen- itentiary and the state prisons of California, after which they ad- opted plans and let contracts for construction of the new institu- tion, on a tract of 160 acres, do- nated to the territory for peni- tentiary purposes by Walls Walla city and cotmty. In its report to Gov. Eugene Semple, who had in the meantime replaced Squire, the commission- ers, on Sept. 17, 1887, reported that constructipn had been com- p!eted in Febm|ary of that yea," of "A stockade of stone, laid in l cement, enclosing the acres of ground, in a parallelogram. The wail is laid in a trench three feel. deep and six feet wide, it is six feet wide at the base, and tapers to a width of 16 inches at the top, which is 15 feet above the ground and is covered with cement. i It is perpendicular on the inside, and is provided with numerous ~heavy buttresses on the outside. A plank walk,, protected by an i iron railing, runs the entire length :of the wall on the outside. Two brick girard houses are erected at opposite corners of the st.ockade, and wooden sentry boxes at the other conmrs. ; The stockade wall is provided with two sets of gates set in stone walls, of the same dimen- sions as the stockade ~alls, the outer gates being made of heavy iron bars, the inner gates of boiler, iron and fitted with patent locks. The gateway is covered by a one- story wooden building, 22 x 32 feel in size, used as au office and .sleeping room by the Warden. Inside the stockade are the pri- son building and a small building used as a laundry, etc., both of brick. The main or.cell building is 34 x 100 feet inside, with walls 22 inches thick and 26 ,feet high. It has numerous barred windows, a corrugated iron ceiling, cement floor and two entrances provided! with double iron doors having pat- ent locks. In this building are 84 iron (..ells place(t 1lack to back, in lhrec liera, 14 in a, row, 28 in a~ lier, having a corridor fenced off by an iron grating. The cells are each five feet, six inches wide, nine feet long, and seven feel: high. Each cell has a ventilating shaft, and is designed for two prisoners who sleep on. hanll,]oeks, Four of the cells are dark, the others hay- ling grated doors." : Tim cells were. erected by the Pauly Jail Building and Ma.,lufac- turing Company of St. Louis, (the same firm that installed prison equipment in the ultra-modegn V~