page_title: Kentucky State Penitentiary in Frankfort
section_title: 1844 Prison Fire
hierarchical_section_title: Kentucky State Penitentiary in Frankfort / 1844 Prison Fire
caption_attribution_description: English: Prisoners returning from worship. Taken from Engine House.
context_page_description: The Kentucky State Penitentiary in Frankfort was the first prison built West of the Allegheny Mountains and completed June 22, 1800. Kentucky was still virtually a wilderness. The Kentucky Legislature of 1798 had appointed Harry Innes, Alexander S. Bullitt, Caleb Wallace, Isaac Shelby and John Coburn as commissioners to choose a location for a “penitentiary house.” The house was described "to be built of brick, or stone, containing cells, workshops, with an outside wall high enough and strong enough to keep the prisoners from getting away."The site chosen was Frankfort, Kentucky. Henry Innis, one of the commission, gave one acre of land and the legislature appropriated $500 towards its building with more funds to be allocated later.
  This prison was known as the Kentucky Penitentiary until the 1910 Prison Reform bill passed March 1, 1910: This bill included that one institution be penal and the other reform; the changing of its mode of Capital Punishment from the gallows to the use of an electric chair, and included that the electric chair be kept in a "penitentiary," and that a "Death House" to be built. The electric chair was installed at the Branch Penitentiary September 1910.
context_section_description: August 30, 1844 - Prison fire - All the wood buildings within the walls were consumed; no convicts escaped during the fire.   The wagons, and a few manufactures were saved but the shops, machinery, tools, unfinished manufactures, were consumed.  The prisoners were unharmed.
caption: Kentucky State Penitentiary in Frankfort bet 1846-1860
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