Imprisoned Twice in the Same Day

Started out the day in the really cold, crisp air of Rawlins, Wyoming, in the old, chilly Frontier Prison.

  

Biggest regret?  Not taking a note pad for all we were learning.  Much more interesting and informative than my tour of Alcatraz.  Thought I’d remember it all, but two weeks later few details are clear.

This old prison, the state penitentiary until 1981, was begun in 1898 but not completed until 1901.  The amazing thing is how little things changed over the years.  When the prison opened, there was no running water, electricity nor anything resembling adequate heat for the withering Wyoming climate.  The shocker was that many years went by before flush toilets were installed; hot running water wasn’t provided until 1950 when a new cell block was built to reduce the overcrowding – and the original cell block did not have hot water until 1978!

Inmates often went long times without bathing, what with cold water and no heat in Wyoming winters.  Occasionally, they were hosed down.  Or hosed down with icy water and then thrown into the dungeon.  Conditions continued for many years  that remind one of third world prisons or the inquisition.

Prisoners could become trustees after 6 months of good behavior, no matter what their crime had been, which entitled them to various privileges.  Bad behavior could result in the loss of one’s pillow – then one’s blanket – then the thin mattress between the prisoner and the concrete block he slept on.  These privileges could be regained with good behavior, but some seemed never to catch on to that.

Solitary confinement prisoners were allowed a short while outside each day with a basketball and hoop – but if the ball escaped them and they stepped beyond a certain line not very far away– still well within prison walls – the tower guards were allowed to shoot.

The prison museum is also a good place to see a demonstration of how the gallows worked.  Designed by humanitarian Julien Gallows, who devised a system of weights and counterweights so that in the end it was the condemned’s own weight on the board that caused him to drop and hang.  Thus no one had to carry the burden of being the executioner.  It’s hard to explain the process –if you’re interested, there must be a Youtube video out there somewhere.

Several years ago a low-budget film company asked to use the place to film “Prison.”  This was before the old prison was designated a historic landmark, so the film company, having no contract or obligations, was able to paint, revise, rip around and damage whatever they wished to with no consequences.  [Things have since changed.]  A lot of the oddly-painted, drippy walls, we were told, were attempts to cover up the massive amounts of fake blood the film company had spread everywhere.

Art, whose artwork you’ll see here, had only one arm, making it hard to find a prison job for him.  The warden discovered Art’s talent and gave him the task and opportunity to decorate the new cafeteria with his work.  [The prisoners had destroyed the old cafeteria in a riot which only the chaplain could quell without serious damage to the inmates.]  Art tried to use his art to convince people to walk on the right side of the tracks, to be aware that they were always being watched – but Art’s return to the outside world at the end of his sentence was short, as he was unable to follow his own advice and was back before long.

A couple of things that stand out in my mind are that prisoners were required either to go to the weekly church service held on site or do something quite unpleasant –  can’t remember what – but everybody went to church.  Services and sing-alongs were held by a local woman who truly did care about prisoners and what might help them to make their way back into the wider society.  In this frontier prison one sees the bare beginning of a shift from “Penitentiary” – where prisoners were to be quiet, reflect on their wrongdoings and pay penance – to a place of rehabilitation and change. 

The Frontier Prison gave the physical impression of just what the prison must have been like.

There are better sources for info about the prison than what I can write a week later with no notes.

http://kathiewanders.blogspot.com/2015/11/wyoming-frontier-prison-state.html

and the prison museum’s website itself: http://www.wyomingfrontierprison.org/pages/history.html

Touring a prison as one who has never lived in one, nor had a close relative who lived in one, does not carry emotional overtones.  It’s an informative, actually kind of ‘fun’ experience.  But it doesn’t feel right for that to be the case. 

Later the same day, we toured the Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie, the predecessor to this one in Rawlins.  Since that prison has been completely renovated out of necessity in order to serve as a museum, it’s a very different experience, but one which also has its value.  But that story is for another day.

The pictures that mattered most to me can be seen at https://goo.gl/photos/FX6Yt7revvETShuT9

Captions appear lamentably small, but do watch for them!