Meade County news., 1915-02-11
FOR A NEW KANSAS PRISON
State Architect Has Completed His
Plans for Rebuilding the State
Penitentiary at Lansing.

The plans for the complete rebuild
ing of the Kansas Penitentiary to
make it the most modern penal insti-
tuition in the country have been finally
completed by Charles H. Chandler,
state architect, and approved by the
penitentiary commission named nearly
two years ago by Governor Hodges.
The rebuilding is not to be done all
at once, but will cover period of five
or six years. The cost will be around
$3OO,OO0 the prisoners doing practical
ly all the work, and much of the ma
terial being made by the prison.
All of the buildings will be as near
fireproof as it is possible to make
them, steel and concrete being used
entirely in all of the buildings even
to steel window frames and sills and
steel doors. One of the main features
Of the prison will be light. The pres
en- buildings are dark and dingy,
while the new ones will contain as
much glass as possible, that the sun
may shine directly into the prison
cells.
The first move for the new prison
will be the extension of the walls to
the east to inclose another five acres.
Then the two big cellhouses are to be
rer,odeled and the warden's residence
taken entirely outside the walls. A
residence for the warden is to be pro-
vided. The administration offices are
to be taken from the main prison
buildings and placed in a new build
ing Just outside the present walls.
X X
Weir Dynamiter at Large.-Whlle
Weir was getting ready to catch the
dynamiter who had caused five explo-
sions and terrorized the town the al
legged maniac threw another stick OF
| dynamite into a back yord and es-
| caped. About $50 p. m. an explosion
occurred in the rear of the home OF
! William Fleming, carpenter employ
ed by coal company. No damage
was done.
Was SO Years oTd.-Eliphalet John
son, SO years old, is dead at Dresden
he was a pioneer in Ohio, Iowa, llli
nois and Kansas. He was born in
New York in 1916.
x 4 x
Council Grove Hotel Burned
| Guests in the Saddle Rock Hotel il
Council Grove were routed from thei
beds at 4:30 o'clock in the morning
and barely escaped in their nigh
clothes when fire destroyed the build
ing. The thermometer registered i
below zero and those who escape
suffered severely from the cold.
| x X Il
Farmer Killed in Runaway.-Georg
Sio, a farmer near Falun, Saline cour
ty, Is dead from injuries received i
a runaway. He is survived by so
and five daughters.
Pecan Raiser Dead at 76.-Mrs. Ri
chel Hewitt, 76 years old, and owne
of what is said to be the largest peca
farm in Kansas, is dead at her HON
eleven. miles north of Parsons. Mr.
Hewitt vas a pioneer settler of L
bette County, coming to Kansas fro
Tennessee in 1865.
X
Independence Sells Bonds.-The L
dependence commissioners recent
opened bids for $4,000 worth of eli
bonds for a new city hall and fl
fighting equipment. They were su
scribed twice over.
* X X
Buried Aqueducts. Found.-What
believed to be the remains of ear
/ Spanish civilization in western Ka
| sas or possibly of period datil
| back further than that has been U
| earthed on farm a few miles nor
| of Coolidge in Hamilton county. VIII
l digging a we'll A. e. Sunnyfrank d
covered what appears to be mason
auueducts and other concrete wo
about twenty-five feet below the s.
face of the ground 1t was a tunn
like affair and branches out in
| ferent observation-disclosures ha
j been asked to come and inyestiga