United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth

The United States Penitentiary (USP), Leavenworth is located in Leavenworth, Kansas on 1,583 acres (6.4 km²) with 22.8 acres (92,000 m²) inside the penitentiary walls. The USP Leavenworth came into existence through an act of the United States Congress in 1895. It is an all-male, medium-security facility committed to carrying out the judgments of the Federal Courts.

USP Leavenworth is frequently confused with the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, the maximum-security, penal facility of the United States Military. In fact the two facilities are unrelated institutions.

Popularly called the 'Hot House' because the facility was notoriously hot year-round, despite the weather and/or whether the A/C units were running.

Overview

Historical timeline

1827 - Colonel Henry Leavenworth chose site for new fort.

1875 - Fort chosen as the site for a military prison. Within a year, Fort Leavenworth housed more than 300 prisoners in a remodeled, supply-depot building.

1894 - Secretary of War conceded to the House Appropriations Committee that War Department could do without the military prison.

1895 - July 1 - Congress transferred the military prison from the War Department to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice took over the plant and inaugurated the United States Penitentiary. Commandant of the military prison, James V. Pope. Warden of the USP, James W. French.

1896 - House Judiciary Committee recommended that the facility be replaced.

1896 - June 10 - the Congress authorized a new federal penitentiary.

1897 - March - Warden French marched prisoners every morning two and one-half miles (4 km) from Ft. Leavenworth to the new site of the federal penitentiary. Work went on for two and one-half decades.

1899 - July 1 - Robert W. McClaughry was appointed Leavenworth's 2nd Warden.

1901 - November 10 - Joseph Waldrupe was the first correctional officer to be killed (records dating back to 1901) in the line of duty at Leavenworth.

1903 - Enough space was under roof to permit the first 418 prisoners to move into the new federal penitentiary.

1904 - First Cell house completed

1906 - February 1 - All prisoners had been transferred to the new facility, and the War Department appreciatively accepted the return of its prison.

1910 - May - The Attorney General approved construction of a separate cellblock for females on the penitentiary grounds - this plan was later abandoned.

1913 - June - T. W. Morgan, editor of a newspaper in the small Kansas town of Ottawa, was appointed Leavenworth's 3rd Warden.

1919 - Construction of the cellblocks completed.

1926 - Construction of the shoe shops completed.

1928 - Construction of the brush and broom factory completed.

1929 - Construction of the barber shop and first interprison murder.

1930 - May - the Bureau of Prisons became a federal agency within the Department of Justice.

1930 - September 5 - Carl Panzram becomes the first to be executed (records dating back to 1927) by hanging at Leavenworth.

1934 - December 11 - President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the first federal prison industries as a public corporation.

1938 - August 12 - Robert Suhay and Glenn Applegate the first double execution (records dating back to 1927) by hanging at Leavenworth.

2005 - Federal Bureau of Prisons changes USP Leavenworth's mission. The BOP decided to change the custody level of USP Leavenworth from High / Maximum to Medium.

Notable prisoners

* George "Bugs" Moran, Irish gangster that battled Al Capone for the control of Chicago's criminal underworld
* Lawrence "Larry" Bilello, NYPD officer convicted of murder and Lucchese crime family mob associate
* Jimmy Burke who was sent to the prison for the first time at the age of eighteen in 1949 and once again in 1972 for extortion
* James J. Bulger, Irish-American gangster sent to Leavenworth for hijacking and bank robbing. He was shipped to Leavenworth out of Alcatraz.
* Fritz Joubert Duquesne - Nazi spy and leader of the "Duquesne Spy Ring", the largest convicted espionage case in United States history.
* Victor Feguer - last federal fugitive executed before Timothy McVeigh
* Gus Hall - former leader of the Communist Party USA, indicted under the Smith Act
* Thomas James Holden - murderer and escapee, FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive #1, 1950
* Orba Elmer Jackson - escapee and post office robber, FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive #7, 1950
* George "Machine Gun" Kelly - Depression era gangster.
* Randy Lanier - 1986 Indy 500 rookie of the year.
* Felix Mitchell - notorious drug kingpin from Oakland, California. Stabbed to death in 1986 months into his prison term
* Byron "Bam" Morris - former NFL player, played in Super Bowl XXX
* Richard Case Nagell - the so-called "Man Who Knew Too Much"
* Carl Panzram - serial killer, autobiographer
* Leonard Peltier - American Indian Movement leader, convicted of murdering two FBI agents, FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive #335, 1975
* Leslie Isben Rogge - Bank robber, FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive #430, 1990
* Robert Stroud - became famous as the "Bird Man of Alcatraz"
* Thomas Silverstein - Regarded as one of the prison Bureau's most dangerous prisoners; was held in Leavenworth's basement in a "No Human Contact" Status
* Michael Vick - NFL quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, pleaded guilty to operating an unlawful six-year long interstate dog fighting venture known as "Bad Newz Kennels". [ [http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3185291 Vick enters drug treatment program at Kansas prison] ]
* Frankie Cavanaugh - Irish-American gangster sent to Leavenworth for a 20 sentence for murder was Released in 2007
* Ricardo Flores Magón - Mexican revolutionary and anarcho-syndicalist intellectual who exiled in the US during the Mexican Revolution. He became equally at odds with US authorities and eventually died in Leavenworth in 1922, allegedly being beaten by prison guards.
* Frederick Cook - Famous explorer whose claims to be the first to reach the summit of Mt. McKinley and the North Pole turned out to be fraudulent. In 1922, plead guilty to mail fraud and imprisoned until 1930.

References

External links

* [http://www.lvarea.com/data/usp_info.htm United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth Information] from Leavenworth Area Development