He opened a rock quarry, where an excellent grade of building stone could be obtained. He opened a second quarry where rock for making lime was abundant, and established lime kilns, and began making forty barrels of lime a day. A rock crusher was installed. A brick plant was erected and shale quarries opened for making the 16,000,000 bricks that are going into the prison buildings. A concrete block plant was established, where 200 concrete blocks were turned out daily. Sand for the masonry work is obtained from the Missouri river. Wood for burning the brick and lime was found in the forest on the reservation, as well as for scaffolding, and much of the lumber that is being used in construction. All of these are being operated by prison labor on various parts of the reservation, while the armed guards look on. Within the old prison walls iron and wood working machinery has been put in, as well as tin and electrical working machinery. All of the iron and steel is being brought to the prison in practically a raw condition, and the prisoners are working it up into finished product. To do this it was necessary for the prisoners to master every building trade.
Long before anything of this work was done the tedious task of teaching the convicts the mechanical trades began. In fact, it was the idea of Colonel Slavens that entirely apart from the problem of building the new military prison, the convicts should be taught trades. So schools were established, and everything from reading to writing to stenography and typewriting is taught in classes that meet three times a week. Expert civilian superintendents were employed to teach the convicts and act as superintendents of the work in the new prison, and they have developed some remarkably fine mechanics. Each convict is allowed to follow his natural bent wherever possible. Electricians, ironworkers, brick masons, tinners, and a score of other trades have been taught the men. Two hundred and seventy-five of the prisoners are being worked on the prison building proper, while an additional 176 are working in the brick plant, lime plant and quarries. A difficulty is encountered in the fact that about the time many of the convicts become first-class workmen their term of service expires. Forty-one per cent. of the prisoners confined at the military prison are deserters, the maximum penalty for which in time of peace is imprisonment for two and one-half years. Many of the others are confined for less serious offenses.
Before any work on the new buildings began, the commandant had to coach a company of prisoners in the gentle art of housemoving. Forty-one houses, occupied by civilian employees and guards, covered the site on which it was desired to build the new prison. These were moved to a site a quarter of a mile away. Then a fill, in some places a depth of thirty-five feet, was made, before the new site was ready for the buildings.
The grounds covered by the old and new buildings comprise an area of about seventeen acres. A wall of concrete, several feet thick, and in some cases rising to a height of fifty-five feet, now is practically completed around this site. A power plant covering half a city block is about finished. The power plant is connected by tunnel with the main building under process of construction. An examination of the power plant gives every evidence of expert construction. It is built of brick and concrete, with an immense circular brick chimney rising to a height of over 100 feet. When it is in operation it will be in charge of a convict engineer.
The main building of the new prison is being constructed on the radial plan, with the cell, hospital and other wings radiating from a central building or rotunda. This is for simplicity in control of the prisoners. By this means eight guards, armed with repeating rifles, patrolling the “gun walks” of the rotunda and cell wings, will be able to keep in subjection the 2,100 prisoners that are expected to occupy the new prison when it is finished. All the necessary utilities for the maintenance of life will be under one roof when the building is completed. There will be a hospital, laundry, bakery, refrigerating plant, amusement hall (used mainly for devotional purposes), and even the cells will be fitted with individual toilet facilities.
There will be a total of 2,182 cells in the five cell wings radiating from the new building. There are now 909 cells, containing 932 prisoners. As soon as the new prison is completed there are enough prisoners waiting in the guard houses of the various military posts throughout the country to fill all of the 2,182 cells, and they will be sent to Fort Leavenworth.
The government manifests no anxiety to give out details touching its business, but the information is vouchsafed that on the lime that is going into the new building, a saving of 80 per cent. on each barrel is effected, and that in the case of brick, it is costing the government 60 per cent. less to make it than it would cost to purchase it in the open market. This, with the saving in labor, gives an idea of how the government is able to erect $2,000,000 worth of buildings on an appropriation of $647,000.
The government has no intention whatever of going into the open market in competition with outside labor. It will manufacture nothing at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, which is not used in the conduct of the prison itself. In pursuance of this policy in the past, it has built with prison labor six miles of terminal railroad at the fort, and has constructed and is maintaining many miles of rock road.
There are only two other military prisons in the United States. One is a provisional prison on Governor’s Island, and the other a small prison at Alcatraz, Cal., about one-fourth the size of the present Fort Leavenworth prison. The government has not announced whether it will abandon these.
When the new prison is finished about $50,000 will be spent in remodeling the old buildings, some of which are very ancient. One was built in 1877 and another in 1830, but they are still in a fair state of preservation. They were originally built for a quartermaster’s depot.