Great and not so great escapes from Nevada State Prison featured at Oct. 16 talk
One escape from Nevada State Prison fits the category of “great.” Most of the others, not so much. Glen Whorton, former director of the Nevada Department of Corrections, will speak at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 16 at the Silver Oak Executive Conference Center in Carson City on “Great and not so great escapes from Nevada State Prison.”
His talk is free and open to the public. It is the first in a monthly series of presentations by the Nevada State Prison Preservation Society on the history of the 151-year-old prison.
The Great Escape of 1871 led to an epic gun battle in the prison yard, after 29 prisoners broke into an armory and grabbed pistols, rifles and ammunition. Within two months, 18 of the escapees were dead or captured, but not before leaving a trail of crime.
Whorton, who is president of the society working to preserve the prison and establish a museum there, will also talk about the Nevada prisoner with the longest escape and return in the nation’s history, and notorious incidents in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Some escape attempts were tragic, leading to deaths of prisoners and staff, and some were simply outrageous, such as the amputee who made it over the fence, and a shortsighted attempt to build a helicopter to fly above the prison walls.
NSPPS was formed to preserve the historic prison on the state capital’s east side. The prison was built in 1862 and is the third-oldest in the West, after only San Quentin and Alcatraz. It was decommissioned in May 2012.
NSPPS is a Nevada nonprofit corporation and has applied for federal nonprofit status.
Individual memberships start at $25 a year and will help NSPPS fund its goals of not only preserving a unique and prominent piece of Nevada history, but to open the old prison’s doors to tourists and events.
For more information on the NSPPS and membership, visit www.nspps.org. You may also write to info@nspps.org or simply attend the talk on Oct. 16.
The Preservation Society has plans to preserve the historic portions of the prison and its unusual features, such as the original ‘hole‘ — a dungeon-like cave where the worst prisoners were isolated — and the quarry from which stones for several state buildings were mined.
The prison property also contains fossilized footprints of prehistoric animals, an execution chamber where 32 people have died, the site of the world’s first gas-execution chamber in 1924, and it once housed the Bull Pen casino for inmates.
- Carson City
- animals
- Buildings
- Buildings.
- carson
- Casino
- center
- City
- conference
- crime
- deaths!!!!
- died
- events
- features
- Fence
- Free
- Glen Whorton
- helicopter
- help
- historic
- information
- May
- Membership
- memberships
- Monthly
- museum
- Nevada
- Nevada history
- Nevada State Prison
- Nevada State Prison Preservation Society
- News
- Nonprofit
- Presentations
- preservation
- Preserve
- President
- public
- silver
- staff
- state
- talk
- tragic
- history