Saturday, July 30, 2016
This is Part II of the mega road trip post: Ghost Towns, Bad Lands and Yellow Stones. See Part I for the trip summary and other awesome locations from this trip.
Wyoming State Penitentiary was constructed in 1901. During its 80 years in service, 250 people died here, of which only 14 people were officially executed by hanging or, later, the gas chamber which was installed in 1936. Others died of natural causes, suicide or inmate violence. One particular method of suicide involved running head first into the well-secured cafeteria tables. According to one notable inmate *****, whose documentary style journal was later found in the prison archives, and verified as true accounts, men were often sent to the "butcher shop" which was an operating room in the medical ward, never to return. Some also froze to death in the "dungeon". The prison didn't have electricity or running water when it was built and it wasn't until 1978 that they had hot water, and that only lasted three years before it closed in 1981.
This was the last real stop on the trip and at this point I had used up all my film. I was mostly concerned with the film lasting through Bannack, which succeeded, so I shot these on digital.
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