You wake up in a rest area in Colorado, a few miles from Wyoming and put your head on your pillow high in a mountain range well beyond the town of Laramie. A home on wheels does odd things to your geography. Including landing you in jail.
We enjoyed our tour of Colorado but time was passing so I thought we might do a little exploration before we headed east. Mountains and high passes and a tunnel. High altitude Colorado.
Gary suggested Avery Brewing in Boulder.
That was a start and a nice glass of lager helped us on our way.
The plan was for a quick overnight in a rest area. Laundry was done, we had taken showers, we had groceries aboard so we were set. A long day led to an early night. And by seven the next morning Rusty was yawning loudly enough to wake me. Sun was shining through the window above my pillow.
I find myself ridiculous from time to time, for instance I even enjoy sleeping in a rest area by the side of the highway. The morning air was fresh and cool, there was a breeze and I felt suddenly as energetic as Rusty.
I made myself a cup of tea and sat in the sliding doorway watching the shadows and my dog enjoying the grass. Layne was still asleep and it was just a rest area but it was in its way a sublime moment.
Five minutes after we got on US 287 toward Laramie we entered Wyoming according to a slightly weatherworn sign. It was at first, as I remembered the state:
The speed limit went from 65 to 70, marijuana suddenly went from totally legal to totally illegal and Wyoming’s cultural oneupmanship was expressed in the many signs advertising year round fireworks sales.
In a state with only half a million people and it’s one US representative in Congress recently pushed out and the states reputation for cultural conservatism we were reminded that Wyoming has a long history of women’s liberation and it’s nickname is “The Equality State.”. Pigeonholing gets to be very difficult sometimes.
iOverlander sent us to the Territorial Prison in Laramie where there is a water faucet where you can fill your tank. For RVs with big sewage tanks there is also a dump station and we saw them lined up later in the day dumping their tanks at ten bucks a pop. We meanwhile took a tour of the former prison.
Abigail our guide, a history senior at the University of Wyoming showed us around the buildings which were put up in 1872 to house prisoners in the territory that wouldn’t become a state until 1890. Laramie was a mess after the Civil War where criminals ruled the roost. US Marshalls were brought in to restore order and it was hoped the prison would remind miscreants that the Federal Government meant business in the territory. The Warden’s quarters:
The North Wing was the original 1872 prison and the rest of the building came later. There were no executions here but two prisoners did die of illness and old age respectively over the decades! There were many escapes but few survived the miles of wilderness surrounding the jail especially in winter. Basically if you ran you were on your own as there wasn’t a budget to mount posses.
We were four on our tour with two retirees from Tennessee who kept their own counsel. Layne and I asked questions because we both found the place fascinating.
Public buildings had a certain style in the 19th century.
The weird thing in this prison was that the inmates were not paid for their work. They became effectively the warden’s slaves and whoever the warden teamed up with to use their slave labor. Even at the time this practice of not paying prisoners for their work was frowned upon in other states and territories who consequently refused to reciprocate with Wyoming when the territorial jail got over crowded and they wanted to ship out excess prisoners to ease overcrowding.
Oddly their status as slaves meant the warden was motivated to maintain their health so they had modern medical and dental care at the prison to keep them in tip top shape as workers!
The prison had rudimentary heating in the cells in winter via ducted heat with the warmest cells on the top floor and thus reserved for the best behaved inmates. In the photograph above the renovated building has the brick heating duct exposed and the metal vents in back show how warm air was circulated though not very efficiently.
The prisoners were photographed when admitted…
…and I was fascinated by the pictures displayed on the walls.
The photographs displayed easily identified faces, modern in their expressions of contempt or amusement or simple anger at their predicament.
Among the many rules the worst was no talking at any time except for work related conversations. Punishments included solitary confinement in a cell with no light, cutting rations of tobacco or books or being strapped in leg irons a ghastly torture which Layne had me illustrate.
You walked around bent double holding a 10 pound ball shackled to each ankle, no dragging the thing or dropping it. After a minute I was done. One inmate was shackled for four months.
So why is Wyoming the equality state? Women got full legal status in 1869, and with that the right to vote to own property and to have custody of their children. If that doesn’t sound radical think of this: this territorial prison was the first in the country to have a female chaplain. When May Preston married Edwin Slosson she moved to Laramie where he was a professor in 1892 after the territory became a state. She volunteered at the State Prison and was chaplain there from 1899 to 1903 when her family moved back east.
She was the first woman to get a PhD from Cornell and Dr Slosson was an active suffragist. The Wyoming State Prison in Laramie was supposed to be a correctional center but she argued prisoners couldn’t be rehabilitated if they weren’t allowed to converse and she it was who got the no talking rule overturned. Some prisoners hadn’t had normal conversations in years.
We were slightly startled to meet Sam in his cell sentenced to two years for jumping a ride in a rail car.
He was a cook and got a cushy job in the prison kitchen with occasional work in the vegetable garden. Talking got his tobacco privileges stopped as well as four days confined to his cell on bread and water only.
It was a surprisingly realistic and moving talk. Imagine this view in minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit:
Abigail showed us the broom factory where prisoners each made 720 brooms per twelve hour shift. The brooms were sold around the country with the profits shared by the warden and the owner of the Wyoming Broom Company but not the prisoners.
When not leading tours Abigail can turn out half a dozen brooms a day…and she gets paid.
We bought a van sized souvenir to use in our kitchen.
Rusty got his tour outside the prison buildings on the grounds but spent the time we were touring the buildings sleeping aboard GANNET2.
The best known convict at the Territorial Prison was Robert Leroy Parker inmate #187 imprisoned from 1894 to 1896 for stealing horses.
It is said Butch Cassidy honed his trade as an outlaw from his time in the prison where he was described as a model inmate.
You come away from the ninety minute tour wondering how they survived such conditions but it was pointed out life on the outside wasn’t exactly easy either. Daily baths were unheard of and strict working conditions were the norm inside or outside jail. Here they got fed three times a day and a hot bath every two weeks. Plus dental and health care, a library and the ministrations of Doctor Slosson who listened to them and taught them basic social skills for their future outside.
There were varying degrees of punishment for disobedient inmates including the assorted boots and up to four days confined in the dark cell, sensory deprivation at its worst.
In Laramie they called it “ the house across the river” and in 1895 it looked pretty bleak.
For most of the 20th century it was a university stable, housing sheep and cows for the school’s agriculture department. Laramie the city paid to have it restored as a territorial prison museum.
Abigail told us it’s not unusual for staff to receive calls from relatives looking to speak to inmates. Those calls they refer to the modern state prison in nearby Rawlins.
Nine dollars gets you into the prison including the tour and they are open everyday 9-4.
Another of those wayside historical attractions I get to enjoy in retirement.
And then it was off to the Medicine Bow National Forest.
