, 1901-12-17
QUAINT
CHARACTER AMONG THE PRISON
ERS IN THE STATE PEN
ITENTlARY.
La Toit Sc, Indian Chief, Who Drained
His Wife for Breaking His Gun
Number Of Deaths In the institu-
tion-One Man Serving His Third
Term.

The Laramie correspondent of the
Denver News has an illustrated stc:y
in that papers issue of yesterda., and
while he is a little or" when he says
the grim pile of stone and mortar
that for nearly a third of a century has
served alternately as federal and state
prison, nj which has during that time
been the most conspicuous object in
train passing through Laramie. is ten
a%ntless. The removal of the prisoners
to the new ~penitentiary at Rawlins vas
begun Thursday and vas accomplished
after about four round trips of the pris-
on car" but he has some interesting
paragraphs, which are worth reproduc-
ing here. The building is not tenant
less, a part of the prisoners being still
here. He says:
THE Wyoming state ~penitentiary
that has done service up to the present
time stands on the west bank of the Big
Laramie river, just without the city
limits and facing the Union Pacific de-
pot, on the east side of the river. The
north or old wing was erected in the
early '70s, the first prisoner, register
ed as mo. l." being sent over from
Cheyenne in December, 1873.
In all 1913 men were incarcerated in
this prison under federal rule and GA
convicts under state control. High
water mark was reached last month.
when the total enrolment was 1913.
But two deaths have occurred in the
history of the institution, the first be-
ing of such a singular nature as to at
tract widespread attention, many ply
sicians coming to Laramie from Den
yer and elsewhere to study the case.
The victim was Edward Fisher, No.
124, who. although but 20 years old,
was hoplessly afflicted with leprosy.
Fisher was a sailor. A shack was
built for him outside the walls and
when he died, August 81, 1898, he was
buried in a lonely grave on the open
prairie, 300 or 400 feet distant from the
stokade. The next death, and the last,
was that Of julius Greenwald, SEM up
from Evanston to serve a life sentence
for murder in the second degreee.
The quaintest convict on the whole
list is Ia Toit Sc, big Chief" a full
blooded Indian. who had followed the
business OF trapping and who was sent
up from Cheyenne for ten years for
manshaughter. Ia Toit Sc, in his own
opinion and that of a majority of his
race, committed no crime when he club
bed his wife to death with a butt of a
musket. She had u~nintentionally brok-
en- the weapon while cleaning it and
when Ia Toit Sc came home and dis
covered the atrocity of the crime she
had committed he thought it no more
than right to brain her with the stock
of the gun she had ruined.
There is one remarkable character
in the list of prisoners who should not
be overlooked. He is a man slightly
past middle age and is now serving
his third term, each offense commit
ted having been just serious enough to
secure for himself a penitentiary SEN
tence. No sooner is he discharged than
he hastens to do whatever comes first
to hand hat will enable him to get
back to what he calls his home and
where he is satisfied. When brought
over from Cheyenne to begin his third
term he was as happy as a boy with
a little red wagon and actually shed
tears of joy when the great iron doors
of the penitentiary swung to behind
him.