Kentucky State Penitentiary (Frankfort, Ky.)

Dates:
Active 1891
Active 1926
Active 1848
Active 1938
Active 1907
Active 1909
Active 1892
Active 1896
Active 1913
Active 1933
Active 1910
Active 1913
Active 1924
Active 1934
Active 1887
Active 1909
Active 1896
Active 1919
Active 1912
Active 1923
Active 1888
Active 1921
Active 1918
Active 1919
Active 1898
Active 1901
Active 1880
Active 1921
Active 1883
Active 1936
Active 1894
Active 1950
Active 1895
Active 1901

History notes:

Legislation establishing a penal system in Kentucky was passed in 1798, and by 1800, the first prison west of the Allegheny Mountains, the Kentucky State Penitentiary, was completed on a one-acre tract of land in Frankfort. As early 1825, the penitentiary and the labor of its inmates were leased to private individuals in return for a percentage of the profits from prison labor, a practice that was not abolished until 1880. Convict labor, however, continued to be contracted out until the 1920s.

The for-profit nature of the prison system in Kentucky, along with substantial overcrowding, led numerous administrations during the nineteenth century to seek additional sources of funding, but progress in this area was low. The General Assembly appropriated money in 1872 for construction of a separate unit for women prisoners, and in 1884, a secord prison was added to the system when the Kentucky Branch Penitentiary was erected in Eddyville. In 1895, over 400 cells were added to the prison at Frankfort.

The Frankfort prison was officially renamed Kentucky State Reformatory in 1912, and the Eddyville penitentiary was officially renamed Kentucky State Penitentiary. Deteriorating conditions at the reformatory were such that by 1936, the State Planning Board recommended that it be abandoned. Before further action could be taken, however, the institution was destroyed by the 1937 flood. Inmates were temporarily quartered in camps on the grounds of the Feeble-Minded Institute in Frankfort, as well as in jails and workhouses throughout central Kentucky. After a brief period, male inmates were removed to Oldham County where they began construction of the new Kentucky State Reformatory at La Grange, which opened in 1939. Female inmates were moved to the Women's Division of the Kentucky State Reformatory in Pewee Valley, in 1938.

From the description of Subunit history. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 145414398

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Subjects:

  • Clothing and dress
  • Convict labor
  • Correctional institution
  • Correctional institutions
  • Corrections
  • Food supply
  • Prison discipline
  • Prisoners
  • Prisoners
  • Prisoners
  • Prisoners
  • Prisoners
  • Prisoners
  • Prisoners
  • Prison hospitals
  • Prisons
  • Prisons
  • Prisons
  • Prisoners
  • Prisoners
  • Prisoners
  • Prisoners
  • Prisoners
  • Prisoners
  • Prisons
  • Prisons

Occupations:

not available for this record

Places:

  • Statistics (as recorded)
  • Kentucky (as recorded)

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