The "Old Pen" is mighty

The Wyoming State Penitentiary, known as “Old Pen,” is located in Rawlins, Wyoming, where we’d spent the night.  We found this place by doing our usual walking around.  

 

As there were many outlaws roaming the plains during post-Civil War Wyoming, the pen was planned in anticipation of statehood, and was meant to send a strong message to those desperadoes that Wyoming would NO LONGER tolerate the lawless.  As there are tours, why would we not want to visit a place where there was 80 years of human misery?

Once in, you can't always count on getting out.

The outside of the building is one of architectural beauty, although I’m not so sure the prisoners felt that way being that they were on the inside looking out rather than the outside. 

The stone is unusual to me, not the regular brick and I'm sure it's pretty thick, too.

There were train robbers, murderers, those who escaped and those who got caught and returned.  That included one who assaulted a woman who was exceedingly nice to the inmates.  This guy escaped and was recaptured, and put back into Old Pen to keep him from possibly being lynched by the community members.  Bad luck for him.  The inmates got the jailers and put them in cells.  They hung the guy from the third floor of the jail, and when he didn’t die, drug him up and pushed him off again.  He died that time.  Then they let the jailers out of the cells and went about their business.  No one would own up to killing the guy so he was left hanging throughout breakfast to see if someone would confess.  Nope.  So they cut him down and that was that.

The third level up was not the place you'd want to be tossed from.

The pen opened in December of 1901, complete with 104 cells, none of which had electricity, running water or adequate heating.  The original cell block consisted of 5x7-foot cells housing two men on bunk beds. 

There's not much room for one person, much less two.

I don't think I'd want to use these facilities.  Don't do the crime, you won't do the time.

It was hard to imagine two men in each of these small cells that also held a toilet and a sink.  They were allowed to paint them so there was a rainbow of colors from pastel-blues and greens to darker colors.  Most seemed to be the lighter variety although maybe some have faded over time.  Some have dabs of white, which we learned was toothpaste and used to glue photos to the walls.

Wall art was forbidden; however, in the upper tier cells, on the dark ends, sometimes there was art that wasn't found by the guards.  This was a self-portrait. 

Thirty-two additional cells were built in 1904 due to overcrowding, and there was even a dungeon-house for the true incorrigibles.  Still more cells were built a couple more times, including in 1966.

This is all that is left of the dungeon cells.  They were tiny so one couldn't lay down and it was solitary.  A very bad place to be, in my mind.

There were women housed here but it was too difficult to keep them, and so they were transferred to other jails.  The last one to be transferred out was the Poison Plum Killer, Annie Bruce, who it is said killed her father by preparing him a special plum pie, laced with poison.

Art was an old one-armed inmate.  Every inmate had to have a job, but there wasn't one for him until it was discovered he had a talent for painting, so he  was tasked with painting pictures on the walls.  This one in the dining room is of two rams whose eyes follow you no matter where you go in the room.  I tested that theory and that is exactly how it was.

Some here were killed by the gas chamber that replaced the gallows in 1936.  The gas chamber was tested using a pig before trying it out on the two-legged animals.  Poor piggy.

It wasn't a good feeling sitting in that chair.

All metal doesn't make for a comfortable chair, even if you do know you're going to be gassed.

 While we did not get a demonstration of how the gas chamber worked, we did have one for the hanging machine.  No, no volunteers were needed.  It was interesting as it used weights-and-balance with water so the prisoner could hear the water running out, as well as his time, before the balance went over and the floor dropped, letting his feet go out from under him, dangling as his neck snapped.  I was quite enthralled with watching this demonstration.  Okay, let’s move along, folks.

This is a replica of the real thing.  The floor drops, and you're hung.  Pretty plain and simple workings.

 

We wandered out to the yard, and these are the guard towers located in all of the corners.

There were lots of little bunnies wandering about, giving the feeling of a bit of frivolity even though you know that's not how it was for those who were guests of the Wyoming prison.  The prison opened in 1901 and closed in 1981, serving up jail sentences, executions, and whippings for more than 80 years.  It's another one of those fascinating places that you only want to visit and to not have been a resident of in days past where you were treated as a criminal rather than an honored guest.

There’s a small prison museum as well as a peace officer’s museum.  It was an interesting visit, but misery abounds in these places.  It’s always good to leave.