National Register Listing

Wyoming Territorial Penitentiary

a.k.a. University of Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station Stock

Off WY 130, Laramie, WY

The Union Pacific Railroad came to Wyoming in 1867 and soon thereafter, in July 1868, came the organization of the Territory of Wyoming. During the first months of the territory's existence, towns cropped up almost overnight just ahead of the westward-moving railroad, and many disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. "Hells-on-wheels" were called and were aptly named, teaming with saloons, brothels, burlesque shows, gambling houses, and all the activities, both legal and illegal, that were associated with such establishments. Although law enforcement at the time was somewhat uneven, some of the "frontier desperadoes", as one Laramie newspaper called them, were caught, tried, and convicted. Once sentenced, these convicts had to be held in a prison for the terms of their sentences.

Within two years after its formation, the new territory was in a quandary as to what it should do with its growing number of convicts. Wyoming had been sending its prisoners to the Detroit House of Correction, but transportation costs were high and it was felt that the money saved by housing the offenders within the territory would justify the construction of a new penitentiary. Wyoming Governor John A. Campbell wrote in 1870 in an appropriation request to the U. S. Secretary of Interior: "The building of a penitentiary will result in a great saving to the general government." The decision to build the facility was made in Washington soon thereafter, and later that year money was being set aside from the federal tax revenue collected from Wyoming. The Territorial Legislature had by that time designated Laramie City, one of the railroad towns, to be the location for the prison. The penitentiary was to be a federal facility, intended to be occupied by federal convicts. Territorial convicts would also be kept there at a daily charge to the territory. The prison was to be under the management of a federal marshal who would be assisted by at least one warden.

Bids for the construction of the prison were called for in September 1871, but irregularities were discovered in the bidding procedure and the resulting charges and countercharges delayed the awarding of the contract for several months. Construction was finally begun on the building on April 30, 1872, by Livingston and Schram, contractors from Denver, (the winning bid was $31,450.) It continued without a report of an incident, and on July 15 the cornerstone was laid in place. According to the Laramie Daily Sentinel of that day, it was dedicated "to evil doers of all classes and kinds, in token of which C. H. Brussard deposited a bottle of old bourbon in the cornerstone." In October the wing was accepted, and the first prisoners were brought from Cheyenne on January 14, 1873, and received by Warden N. K. Boswell.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1978.