Sometimes people mistake it for a mission or a country inn. But this is no place to spend the night. This is the La Tuna Federal Correctional Institution, one square mile of imprisonment. Still, you can stop along Doniphan Drive in Anthony just north of El Paso and look at this piece of architectural and federal prison system history. La Tuna was designed by Henry C. Trost, a famous Southwestern architect in the Spanish Colonial Revival style popular in the 1930s.
Modern additions complement the bell tower and elaborate arches.
Now La Tuna is home to about 1,300 inmates, a staff of about 300, and Warden Troy Williamson. Williamson and his wife live on the prison grounds, in a Spanish-style home with a manicured lawn and commanding valley view. Before that, he spent three years at the headquarters of the federal prison bureau in Washington, D.C., and worked in prisons in Oklahoma and Texas. He's a psychologist by training, and is eager to talk about why prison should be a positive experience for an inmate. His office could be that of any successful CEO, with pictures and plaques on the wall.