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Five hundred and fifty-four convicts now sit scowling in their
penitentiary cells. This statement, however, is merely to fix them in
your minds. The personnel of the old gray bastille is in reality much
more mobile and active. The men make things and do things, go to school
and have music and movies. They live as pleasantly as is possible with
whatever guilt hangs over their heads, and within their narrowed
boundaries. For some who have lived there, the view narrowed finally to
the sight of one black loop against the gray dawn—or the leaping of one
fatal spark. Seven were hanged from 1867 to 1920; eight have walked to
the electric chair—1920 to 1929, date of the last case of capital
punishment.
In seventy-five years there have been several outbreaks, mostly minor
ones. But on March 14, 1912, there was a more spectacular performance.
During a deep snowstorm three prisoners, John Dowd, Shorty Gray and
Charles Morley, shot their way out, killing Warden Delahunty, Deputy
Warden Wagner and Usher Heilman. Thereafter for a number of days Lincoln
people were reluctant to plunge out into the neck-high snow lest
conspicuousness result in their being picked off by a convict or a
member of a posse. In the final windup of the chase an innocent farmer,
as well as two of the convicts, were killed—a total of six deaths for
the incident. The third convict, Charles Morley, surrendered. He was
released from the penitentiary about a year ago.
A somewhat sensational escape, 1922, was that of bad man Fred Brown, who
was not only bad but quite antic in his movements. He was variously
referred to as Kangaroo or Chain-man Brown. One day he would pop up in
Omaha, then in some peaceful Lincoln spot, keeping citizens in a state
of uneasy dismay until he was finally captured in the wilds of Wyoming.
On his second attempt to break out, in 1925, he was shot down and
killed.