Word: prisons
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California sends her "repeater" convicts to Folsom Prison, a stronghold whose ashen walls command a desolate stretch of the American River valley laid waste by goldseekers. Prisons are gruesome places at best but Folsom ranks with the worst as a focus of human distemper and desperation. Last week, Folsom was the scene of the greatest prison revolt in California history...
Weapons began to flicker in the half-light of the prison-daggers and stilletos wrought out of files, kitchen utensils, shovels, razor blades. One man had an automatic pistol. As Turnkey Singleton stammered his answers, some one shoved a knife in his back. Someone else struck him deep in the stomach...
Prodding Gorhanson afresh, the convicts marched him to another door, opening from the rear of the cellhouse to the prison ballfield. They captured Guard Walter Neil on the way. At the ballyard door, Guard Neil was sent out first, then Guard Gorhanson. Before the convicts could follow, Guard Neil flung his weight against the door. Tony Brown, San Francisco thug, the convict with the "roscoe" (pistol), tried to shoot Neil's foot out of the way, but the lock clicked. The cursing convicts retired to secure the rest of their guards as hostages and hold a council...
When the alarm reached the prison gate, aged Gatekeeper Charles Gilles died of heart failure. The 1,800 inmates of another Folsom cellhouse were locked in their cells be fore they knew what had happened. In the rioters' building, yells and commotion arose as the messhall and library were barricaded against siege...
Warden Court Smith was beleaguered in his office. To reach the prison wall, he would have to cross a bald courtyard under whatever fire the convicts might loose. He telephoned to Governor Clement Calhoun Young in Sacramento, 25 miles away, to send over soldiers, bombs, artillery. He ordered all available riflemen to the prison wall and consulted with aides whether to starve out the revolt or crush it at once...