Green Bay Correctional Institution: A troubling start
By Kris Leonhardt
Editor-in-Main
Portion III in a sequence
For Part I, click right here. For Portion II, simply click here.
On June 23, 1898, the cornerstone for the initially wing of the Wisconsin Point out Reformatory in Inexperienced Bay was laid.
From there, function progressed on the outer partitions, home windows, and granite, but set up of the cell partitions was set on keep when the ironwork did not get there.
W.J. Thomas, assistant superintendent, invested a couple of weeks traveling to Minnesota prisons to study how they operated and how prisoners have been dealt with.
On Aug. 31, the to start with prisoners arrived on the Chicago & Northwestern noon coach.
Three officers accompanied eight prisoners from the condition prison at Waupun.
They have been fulfilled by Thomas and put on a bus.
The prisoners, ages 19-20, ended up dressed in a gray uniform with a crimson stripe managing down the sleeve and leg.
The subsequent working day, the inmates were place to get the job done for 10 several hours a day cleansing the facility.
Their transfer was a part of 24-35 men established to get there from Waupun to perform on the facility.
The subsequent group of eight prisoners arrived on Sept. 6, and the final eight arrived on Sept. 12.
Two times later on, prison employees experienced their initially escape.
The two 16-year-previous inmates, who experienced just been transported from Waupun, produced their escape even though doing the job as waiters in the officers’ dining space.
Around 7 p.m., they exited through an open up window in the dining room sporting their waiter uniforms soon after the officers had finished eating.
One particular of the teenagers was from Environmentally friendly Bay and the other from Chicago – both of those convicted of burglary.
The escape was followed by a substantial brush fireplace on the grounds times later on that was begun to burn off trash.
A week afterwards, officers had been however exploring for the escapees, with a $25 each reward offered for the capture of the youth.
On Sept. 21, a 3rd prisoner built their escape in wide daylight, even though placing a sidewalk in on the grounds.
When the guard was districted supplying directions to a few other folks, the younger man designed his way to the bordering fields and woods.
He was just 200 feet away when the guard fired 6 situations, missing the prisoner all 6 times.
Jail employees tracked the escaped inmate, but could not track down him.
By early October, perform on the reformatory experienced achieved the fourth floor and steam pipes have been being put in – work that would will need to be completed prior to the floor froze.
To be ongoing
