Locksmiths Needed for Failed Jailbreak
Six inmates in Whatcom were so eager to escape they jammed their own cell locks shut, requiring a blacksmith to cut them loose for breakfast.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Three hoboes arrested by the police were supplied with a pick and other tools by three of their companions, who had also been arrested. In attempting to break the locks and escape, they managed to damage the mechanisms so severely that the police, arriving after the attempt had been abandoned, could not unlock them. Later, three men who furnished the picks to their companions were also jailed. The officers had to summon blacksmiths to cut off the locks so that they could enter the prisoners' cells to provide breakfast. The men in jail gave the names of Tom Nolan, Frank Wells, Frank Burke, Frank Whitney, and Charles Williams, while the sixth is a deaf-mute.
“The officers had to summon blacksmiths to cut off the locks so that they could get into the prisoners' cells to give them their breakfast.”
Jail conditions and inmate efforts to bypass security are persistent themes in regional history; while the technology of jail locks has evolved, the desperation of those inside remains a constant of the justice system.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.