The State Penitentiary
in Canon City 

by 
tomb

 

1.   The first and most important duty of guards, at all times, is to maintain a safe custody of the convicts, and to that end the rules of the Penitentiary require, and the laws of the State (vide Section No. 16-17 penitentiary act, session 1876-1877) justify the shooting of convicts attempting to escape, or of any person aiding or abetting the same.  From: Summary of the Principles of Prison Discipline, 1870 National Prison Congress

It was night and I had been lying in bed listening to the town siren wail continuously for almost two hours.  Daily, it would sound off at 11:50 am then at 12:00 noon to tell us that it was time for lunch and then again at 10:00 pm, each night, to remind us that it was bed-time.  It was also used for special purposes: to announce that a fire was in progress and that all volunteers should call the fire station to find out where the fire was located. During WWII, it was used in air raid drills and, of course, it was used for emergencies  --like tonight.  The town siren was part of Canon City and my early life.  People set their clocks by it .. until the late 50s .. when the City Fathers just got tired of hearing it and turned it off.  .. But this night and the next few days would be different than most --a Prison Break was in progress and this siren was scaring the Bejeebers out of me.  This night I asked to sleep in my mom and dad's room.

Besides the routine of the siren, the Colorado State Prison had always been "there," also --on the western edge of my home town. In the summer Canon City folk would go down to the Prison Park and sit in front of the enormous gray walls on picnic blankets while the convict band --perched on a balcony protruding outward from the walls-- played a concert to us.  The park had swings and other playground equipment including a wading pool as in any other city park -- but all built by convicts for kids .  After the concert, we would stop at the Dairy Building on west end of main street to visit their ice cream shop.  

It was 1947 and I was 11 years old.  Outside my house, I could hear the sounds of cars roaring up or down nearby streets.  I listened carefully to the gunning  motors and screeching tires and tried to figure which street these frantic cars were using and which direction they were going.  I got out of bed and went to the front window. 

Any night, I could look out across my town, westward, toward a chain of small hills called "Hog Backs" to see bright search lights routinely dancing over a steep rock wall cut vertically out of one of these hills.  The Colorado State Penitentiary is located at the base of this hill and this sheer wall provides an impassable barrier to anyone who simply wants to walk westward .. and away from this institution.  As I listened to the sounds of a prison break, I knew that escaped convicts would head eastward, in my direction.

Front administrative entrance (p) to the Penitentiary.  Behind this building is a sheer rock wall cut into the side of one of the Hog Back hills.  Just left of the smoke stack,  is a small guard tower.

When I looked out the front window, I was surprised to find that it was snowing, hard.  It was just past Christmas but I was still surprised.  I was having a difficult time trying to put the thoughts of falling snow and a  "prison break," together.  I wanted to think about tomorrow and getting some guys together with our sleds .. to go up to the Skyline Drive road which runs atop other Hog Backs,  just north of the Prison.  However, I knew that no one was going to get close to either the State Prison or the Skyline Drive for some time.

In relaxed times, my friends and I played "army" all over these Hog Back hills and the Skyline Drive -- building forts in the rocks and over hangs until the sun had fallen behind Fremont Peak.  Tho dead tired -- and still having to cross town to get home for supper -- we would run down to the bottom of these hills,  past prison guard towers which held the search lights, and pausing momentarily, hurl pebbles upward at the windows of these shacks.  Then we'd duck behind rocks or bushes to avoid their search lights 'til we found some residential street that we could follow to get back home.  The guards knew us and our families and if we were spotted in a light, they would announce over their loud speaker, "Get the machine gun Charlie .. we gotta couple-a escapees down here!"  

The Skyline Drive is a narrow road rudely built sometime in the 1890s by a convict work  gang.  This road runs atop Hog Back hills just north of the Prison.  It is an inspiring one way, treacherous dirt road, with a shear drop off on one side and bottomless shafts --disappearing into the ground-- on the other.  

 

Skyline Drive Road (p).  Canon City lies on the left side of this photo. The road is now paved and the entrances to the shafts have been blocked.

Whenever, one of my flatland, Eastern relatives came to Canon City to visit, my Dad would pick them up at the Colorado Springs train station, and then --taking a circuitous route-- they would end up on top of the Skyline Drive.  Here he would tell these pale faced "greenhorns" that this was, "the only road into Canon City .. and we were damn lucky to have it."  In the magic of the moment, no one noticed, US 50, a National Highway which begins in Washington DC, proceeds through the middle of my home town and ends up South of San Francisco .. nor the Denver and Rio Grande Railway track that would eventually carried Harry Truman into town on his last and famous "Whistle Stop Tour" in the mid 50s. 

By 1867, Canon City citizens had been given the choice of either a University facility (Colorado University is now at Boulder) or the Territorial Prison.   They quickly announced that they preferred the Prison facility -- after all no one they knew wasted time going to a University.  Today it is know as the Colorado State Penitentiary .. and despite what one might think .. it doesn't just sit, alone, on the edge of the town, isolated from my little community.  Besides the jobs it provides and the band concerts, the cons provided a rodeo and a competitive ball team.  During the war years and later, it was common to see prison trucks carrying 10 or 12 gray uniform convicts --standing upright in the bed of the truck-- riding out to one of the five prison farms nearby. There usually was a guard standing with them (but not always) and a guard riding with the driver upfront--but both unarmed.  Then,  these prison farms provided most of the fresh foods and meats required by this and other state institutions. Besides tending gardens, I remember that the cons were used to build their own stone and cement facilities in those simpler days.  

Again .. whenever we had guests my Dad took them on a tour of the Prison. I got to go along and there I saw the small ugly iron cages that was "home" to these  people --called, "convicts," or "cons."   I knew this was the way it was .. but I was still surprised to hear the tour-guard tell us that the average education of their  convict population was about .. 5th grade.  I've asked about this many times and found that this number still seems to hold.

 

Prison Cells (p)

Although I had no formal link to the prison, several of my school friends did.  Some had fathers or older brothers who were guards or administrators at the Prison. One school buddy had a father who was Deputy Warden and their home was located just outside the walls .. and staffed with "trustees."  The grounds around this home was a playground for us boys and we liked to play "cops and robbers" with real robbers.  The cons thought it was hilarious to role play, "the cops" .. so we let them. And each time we played we found out how cops acted toward crooks.  They were allowed to use their fingers for guns while we used our own homemade wooden issue.  A guard was alway in the background, nearby.

Sometimes we would sit on the lawn and just talk with the cons.   They were always direct and talked freely.  We asked where they had come from (mostly Denver, it seemed) and how they got into prison.  Without any sign of embarrassment, they told us what they had done, what their sentence was and  sometimes they told us what prison life was like.  One day a con said to us, "... every one in prison 'cons' everyone else.  We listened to the way they talked, and we knew it was true.  They also told us that you can't "con" either an honest person .. or a crook .. so they look for someone who is willing to set aside simple honesty to get something for nothing   Of course they didn't say it like that but they seemed to have an understanding of "us" .. even though we live on the other side of their walls. 

I remember testing  them --pretending that they seemed like nice guys and that they really didn't belong there.  "Oh no," they said, they told us that they were, indeed, guilty and they belonged in prison.  And then they said that some cons were crazy (mentally), some were mean, some could never settle into a job or a family .. but then there were other cons who had  stolen to survive and these cons, they said, didn't belong in prison.  At my age, I didn't understand this comment but years later I realized that they had been talking about cons that had been sent to prison during the depression.  Time stands still for convicts.

Thinking back, I can't remember much of what my school was trying to teach me at this time .. but I do remember the things we discussed on that grassy classroom just outside prison walls.

- - -

As I was saying, it was Christmas week, 1947.  The Prison break started early in the evening -- about the time it started to snow.  12 convicts  from maximum security had found a way to get through the Prison walls using a water culvert that was routinely shut down for a short time. One  (or maybe it was two) had been shot and killed while they were still in the culvert.  Several others had been found in adjacent residential areas next to the prison. 

One con, John Klinger was taken to St. Thomas More Hospital with gunshot wounds .. He died there.  The rest were migrating eastward across the town and were somewhere in the Canon City area.  The State Police and National Guard were called in, road blocks set up and the prison was in complete "lock-down" so that no one could enter or leave the Prison without complete identification and approval from the Warden.  I suspected that Canon City, itself,  was in a "lock-down" condition, also. That is, the State Police was not letting anyone in or out of my home town.  I wondered if they would let food trucks could get in.

 

John Klinger at St. Thomas More Catholic Hospital (p)

 

National Guardsmen (p) searching a car.  Notice the WWII weapons

 

Whatever had happened had happen quickly.  Most Canon City folk had not heard that a prison break had occurred until the initial events were over.  They wondered why the town siren was stuck open .. and at the wrong time.   

Then the long wait began. It lasted a week. Each day the newspapers gave up a little more information about the remaining escapees. At first there was much confusion as to how many cons had tried to escaped,  who had escaped, who had been captured (or otherwise) .. and who they were.  I began to know their names and their records -- just as I knew the names of all the cars on the road and airplanes in the sky .. but that was technology of a kid.  I still remember their names and I'll tell you more about one of them, later.

 

Richard Heilman (p)

 

My god .. it must have been hard on these people.  They had escaped at night, in a   mountain snow storm, very little clothing, no food .. nor even a competent plan to leave the area.  Those that got past the east side of the town had "fanned" out into the open farmland .. but not much more than 10 miles or so from the Prison.  News print tallied each capture. Media pictures showed their desperate appearance and the shock in their eyes as they were captured.  Some were found in house trailers, some in barns.  Two had taken over a farm house for a couple of days--demanding food, guns, and transportation.  There the farmwife had hid a claw hammer under her apron and while one of the cons, Carl Swartzmiller was distracted momentarily, she hit him over the head knocking him out.  His partner gave up to the farmer.

 

Mrs. Oliver (p) was responsible for capturing Carl Swartzmiller who had taken over her farm house.

 

Escapee being returned with Frost bite (p)

 

Carl Swartzmiller (p)

It took several more days to capture James Sherbundy, the last one.  He had decided to stay quietly hidden in a barn until the local search had passed him by.  It didn't .. and he stayed there until hunger finally  brought him out .. and he was captured.

Suddenly, the Prison Break was all over .. but not the rest of this story.

The Denver Post came to take pictures.  If you remember the media, c1948, it took a couple of weeks before any news content would show up in a magazines or newsreels.  Life (Look?) magazine published these pictures and we lived the events, again. Those pictures (some seen above) tell more of this raw story than I can with words.  The startled look in the faces of these very young men have stayed with me some 50 years.  Even today, I simply cannot pull together how these men evolved .. to that moment when some photographer clicked a shutter and froze their life .. for just a moment.

A year later, Hollywood came to the party and made a "B" grade movie about the Canon City Prison Break. The hero of the story was James Sherbundy--played by an unknown  actor, Scott Brady, who later became the famous "Shotgun Slade,"  in a popular western TV series of the mid 50s.  John Smalley was played by another unknown, DeForest Kelly who later became "Bones," the doctor on the original Star Trek series.  The movie version ends with Scott Brady-Sherbundy trapped in the middle of the famous Royal George suspension bridge .. Police approaching from both side .. crouched .. guns drawn. At the last moment, Sherbundy jumps over the railing, looses his grip, and plunges to his death, a 1000 ft below.  This scene, of course is pure "Hollywood."   No bridge was connected with the real events, Sherbundy survived the escape while fleeing in the opposite direction.  
Royal George Suspension Bridge, 1000 ft. above the Arkansas River

But this story does not end, here.

In 1953(?), Prison guards noticed a car that had been passing in front of the Prison --several times.  The State Police were called and when they pulled the car over they found it filled with food, fuel and guns.  One of the passengers was the brother of James Sherbundy.   Evidently, a second escape was in progress.

Eventually, I left Canon City to seek fame and fortune .. but returned often to visit relatives.  On one of these trips, I stopped at a roadside cafe in Pueblo for a bit of a break and breakfast after driving 500 miles. While waiting I picked up a local newspaper, and found that name again --James Sherbundy, buried in a back column.  Wo! What was happening, now?

This 1967(?) article briefly recalled the legal history of James Sherbundy: He had been  caught early one morning (in the early 40s?) breaking through a roof into a Pueblo business to steal (something).  He was then arrested, brought before the judge, convicted, and sentenced that afternoon then taken to the State Pen in Canon City by evening meal time.  Yes! All the same day.  The newspaper noted that Sherbundy had been involved in the famous 1947 prison break and boldly speculated that his "rights" might have been violated in the original proceedings.

Here is where my story ends .. I wish that I knew more. 

 

James Sherbundy (p) after capture.  The haircut style was used to identify convicts in maximum security confinement.

The reader, might wonder why I have written parts of this article in a sympathetic way.  I have included the name and pictures of the convicts because I wanted you to see the faces.  A professional involved in either the social or legal processes that puts and keeps people in Prison would have more accurate and complete information to balance my few remarks, made above.  If you look at some of the references, below, you'll find some very caring rules for administrating a Prison .. as well as caring administrators. Neither you nor I would like to live under these rules .. but to understand why they exist and are necessary is a whole other demanding topic.  

I first got to know convicts as a child and as another part of our human condition.  I wish there was some other way for them .. but I don't think there is.  

VII.   The two master forces opposed to the reform of the prison systems are political appointments and instability of administration.  From: Summary of the Principles of Prison Discipline, 1870 National Prison Congress

Our system only provides procedures that identifies them by the crime they commit, removes them from society using a legal process, and then "warehouses" them --where they can be processed:  numbered, cataloged, maintained and perhaps studied.  The cons understand the rules and We both believe that there is no other place for them in our social paradigm.  There is much more to be said about this topic .. but not here.

This event marks the beginning of the end of an era --when this institution began as a rough Territorial Prison in the 1870s.  However, both the Prison System and the Town were  about to experience substantial changes and now it would be difficult to recognize the same prison today.

- - -

Some of you might remember that we once had a valued Elder who visited prisoners in his country.  He never explained why he did this and there was no reward for the considerable effort he had to make to accomplish each visit.  Perhaps this caring act recognizes what is essentially if the accepted rhetoric is to move in a different direction. 

"To be means to communicate.  Absolute death (non being) is the state of being unheard, unrecognized, unremembered ... To be means to be for another, and through the other, for oneself.  A person has no internal sovereign territory, he is wholly and always on the boundary;  looking inside hinself, he looks into the eyes of another or with the eyes of another."  From: M.M. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics.

He might have said, simply, "visit the imprisoned."  

- tomb

 

Many of the facts and pictures appearing in this article came from various Colorado archiving projects. (below)

References: