While outlaws roamed the windswept high plains, canyons and mountains of post-Civil War Wyoming, the state was preparing for statehood with a new penitentiary at Rawlins. The Wyoming State Penitentiary served from 1901 to until 1981 when it closed. It sent a strong message to desperados that Wyoming was not longer a haven for outlaws. This is the same area that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbed banks and trains and made a name for themselves.
Today it is called the Old Pen. The cell block changed little since 1901. Hot water was not placed in the cells until 1978. The "dungeon-house" was completed in 1906 for punishment of the incorrigibles, but later abandoned when two prisioners were found froozen to death in it. The Julien galows was the same apparatus use dto hang Tom Horn in Cheyenne in 1903. In 1959, inmates in the Death House dig a tunnel to the West Wall and would have escaped, if they hadn't hit a gas line in the dark so one prisoner struck a match to see what it was! End of story. Nine prisoners were hanged and five prisoners were executed by lethal gas.
The worst place for me was the Death House. This is on the upper floor and was where the gas chamber and the hanging room were located. This was where the men waited on Death Row. As I walked up the stairs from the outside to the upper floor housing the Death House, I could feel with each step the pressure I felt on my chest. I felt heavier and heavier as I neared the metal door to gain access to the Death House. I felt almost a panic as I neared the door. Once inside, I felt a hopelessness that I felt no where else.
While in the hanging room with the noose with its thirteen knots, Sharon took my picture. Behind the noose was a glass enclosed board with the photos of those who were either gassed or hanged by the neck. When I enlarged the photo, especially the glass portion, I could see the reflection of Sharon at the door as she was taking the photograph. I could also see a man in front of her with a wide brim hat. I can see a portion of the face. Now, there was no one in front of Sharon because she could not have taken the photo if there was someone. The flash was muted in the reflection, as if it passed through a spirit body and was defused.
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