September catch up - Wyoming Frontier Prison

 It’s been a couple days since my last post because we have had a couple travel days and the one place we went, Wyoming Frontier Prison, was very interesting, but it was alot of facts and I was trying to figure out the best way to write it.  So I think I am just going to do a list rather than a narrative and in no particular order.

The prison was started in 1888 but due to difficulties with weather and funding it was not complete until 1901 and was open for 80 years.  That sounded like an impressive amount of time to me for something that opened in 1901.  

9 men were executed in this prison, 4 by hanging, 5 by gas chamber.  There was a man named Gallows who created a “contraption” for people to be executed by hanging.  He did it so that no one had to be the executor, the people executed themselves (kind of like a domino effect but with water). They did have to calculate the mans weight and whether it would break his neck. If not, they would add weights to the mans body to make sure that when the floor went out from under him there was enough weight to break his neck.   It would take 1-1 1/2 minutes for death to occur.  In the museum they had short pieces of rope from each of the men that were executed.

This is the model of the Gallows hanging apparatus.  The inmate would stand on the floor, water would drip from the side bucket up top to the one down the bottom and cause a lever to move the floor out from under the inmate.  I thought it was kind of creepy that you would be listening to the drips, not knowing which one was going to take the floor out from under you.

This is a picture of a portion of the actual Gallows apparatus.

The gas chamber was built in 1933 as a more humane way to execute prisoners.  The prisoner would pass out in 15-30 seconds and pass away in 2-5 minutes.  Present for these executions were the warden, a chemist and 2 physicians.  There was a little hole behind the chair in the gas chamber where a stethoscope line was put through so the two physicians could listen and pronounce the inmate dead.  

Gas chamber

Right behind the chair off to the right of the seam of the wall notice the hole for the stethoscope tube.

There were 11 women in the prison in the early 1900s.  They found it was too expensive to keep them separate, so the women were shipped to another prison in 1909.

One prisoner was in the prison 4 different times under four different names so he was not treated as a repeat offender.  They didn’t figure this out until many years later when looking at the history.

New inmates started out in the typical black and white uniform.  They earned gray uniforms and certain privileges with good behavior.

Inmates would be handcuffed to a pole and whipped with a rubber hose as punishment.  Why a rubber hose?  It left no marks.

The cells on the first block built were 5x7.  When they were overcrowded, there would be two prisoners in a cell with bunk beds.  

In 1914 toilets were added.  Before that they only had buckets.  

There was no heat in the building initially so it would get quite cold.  Even once they had heat, the warmest it was in the winter was 50 degrees inside.

When they added on the second cell block, the cells were 10x12 and they had 3 inmates in each cell.  This only lasted a short time because they found that the two biggest would pick on the 3rd, so they went to 2 men per cell.

There was no hot water in the facility until 1978.  Yes, 77 years of no hot water.  There were 30 guys at a time in the 10 showers.  Obviously they only showered when they really had to.  If they found a prisoner smelled, they would take them outside with a high powered hose.  So as an inmate it was a delicate balance of when to shower.  

The prison found various design flaws as time went on.  One was having the lightbulbs in the cell.  In one block the cells were deep enough that the inmate would unscrew the bulb and you couldn’t see what he was doing in the back of his cell.  They made sure the best behaved inmates were in these cells. 

There was an area for solitary confinement as punishment.  This was another lesson learned.  They found that the inmates tried to get in trouble to go to solitary because it was in a cell block that was warmer and you got peace and quiet.  So they turned these cells into laundry and storage. 

Cell Block B was the luxurious block because it had heat and water.  Punishment was to go to Cell Block A where the cells were smaller, there was no heat or water.  

The first kitchen was added in 1916.  This was the best job an inmate could have because it was warm.

The first kitchen had metal trays and also wood benches and tables.  They learned that metal trays were good weapons.  They also had an incident where the inmates moved all the benches and tables to a corner of the dining hall and set them on fire.  They then had metal benches and tables installed and they were bolted to the floor.

All prisoners had work assignments.  They had a factory on site that first made brooms, then shirts, then license plates.  There was one person who only had one hand.  They found out he could paint, so he did murals for the dining hall and other areas of the prison.  His murals had messages.  There was one of sheep and no matter where you walked in the room, the eyes seemed to look at you.  The message: In prison, someone is always watching.  There was another picture that had a railroad track.  No matter where you stood in the room you were always on the right side of the track.  The message: When you get out, stay on the right side of the tracks.

One story was about a lady who lived across from the prison.  Her grandson was in the prison so she would bring cookies for everyone.  When one inmate got out, he went to her house because she was the only person he knew.  He killed her for some reason.  He was then put back in the jail and the inmates provided the justice.  No one was blamed for the murder.  Moral of the story, don’t mess with my cookies.

There was one inmate who was able to “saw” through his cell bar with toothpaste on a rope.  He would get out, break into the commissary, steal items and then sell them to the inmates for a discount.  He made money and no one would rat him out cause they were getting things for less.  

The walls of the prison go 3 feet into the ground.  They were going to tear the prison down when it closed.  They tore down the factory, but then decided it was too expensive to do the rest and just abandoned the property.

The exercise yard had a full size baseball field.  They would have games with teams from around the state.  However, all of their games were home games.

Death row had 6 cells.  The most that were on death row at a time were one or two inmates.  The longest was on death row for 7 years, the shortest was 3 months.  Once you went on death row, you never went out of that death row area.  

In 1959 there were no inmates on death row, so they put the worst inmates up there.  The inmates broke out through the floor “hole” that was used for hangings back in the day.  They dug a tunnel and put the dirt in the ceiling to hide it.  At the end of the tunnel they kept hitting something hard.   One night they took a match to see what they were running into.  It was the gas line.  They were badly burned but did not die.  The inmates were put back in the regular cell blocks.  

One funny thing the tour guide said is not matter how many people they have on the tour, no one walks on the steel plate screwed in the floor that was the floor that went out from under for the hangings.

C Block was built in 1966 and this housed the worst people.  They had their own exercise yard with no bats and only one at a time could go out there.  There was a basketball net for them to use, but that’s it. 

C block you were in your cell 23 hours a day.  The bed was a solid concrete slab.  You got your mattress, pillow and blanket each night.  If you were bad, you did not get them and had to sleep just on the slab. 

In 1965 they added classrooms which taught K-12.  The classrooms replaced the “holes”.  One was a 5/7 sleeping cell.  You were completely in the dark and had nothing but a blanket and a hole in the floor to the open sewer to do your business.  The other hole was a 4x4x8 standing cell.  There was one inmate who was in the standing cell for two, one week stints in a row and ended up in the mental institution.  That’s when they figured the standing cell was too harsh. 

I found this very interesting learning about a life I could not even imagine.

Dave wanted this picture taken to say that he has finally gotten on my nerves sharing our camper space and so he was sent to prison.

If you are ever passing by Rawlins, WY on Route 80, I highly recommend this hour or so detour.