6.01.2026 Rawlins Wyoming: The "Old Pen" and Carbon County Museum

 

6.01.26

Travel Day!

We left the Cabela’s Campground at 7:00 am. We try to beat the traffic, wind and heat. The wind is horrible! We took our time and stopped several times at rest areas, practicing our motto: Never pass up a rest stop!

After we got set up at the Rawlins KOA, we went for diesel a few miles down the road and rolled into the Maverick on fumes!

As Al was getting back in the truck, a guy waved him over and was  pointing at the rear passenger tire. OMG! There were bulges! Apparently a steel belt broke. Thank the Lord we didn’t have another blow out! It was so close! We thanked the guy for pointing it out and Al did some Googling right there and found a mom and pop tire shop a couple miles away that had the tires we needed. MGT Tire Service. The people were so nice and helpful. They got us in right away. They loved Mr. Marley and we sat in their office while the tires were changed. They thanked us for our business and our $980.

 

We bought ice cream at the KOA office. This was my pick. YUM!!!

6.02.2026

We toured the Wyoming State Penitentiary "Old Pen"

Al and I in front of the 'Old Pen"

Execution

Our tour guide started the tour by demonstrating how the Julian Gallows worked. She poured water in the small white container, then put the little weighted "prisoner" on the trap door. The weight of the "prisoner" made a valve on the white container start pouring water into the big bucket. When the water ran out, the trap door opened and the "prisoner" went through the hole and was hung. The tour guide said there were times  when it didn't work right and they had to do the hanging again or they just pulled on his legs until the deed was done.

This is a model of the Julian Gallows

The real Julian gallows in the prison.

Julian Gallows

The "water drip gallows," commonly known as the Julian gallows, was an automated execution device designed in 1892 by Cheyenne, Wyoming architect James P. Julian. It utilized a water-filled counterweight system to trigger the trapdoor, allowing the condemned to, in effect, act as their own executioner and sparing a hangman from having to perform the task.

The execution apparatus operated on a system of water displacement designed to automate the process. When the prisoner was positioned, their weight on the platform initiated the flow of water from an elevated container into a balance-scale component. As the water shifted, the change in weight eventually tripped the mechanical latch holding the trapdoor in place. This process created a brief, predictable delay between the initiation of the mechanism and the release of the platform.

Similar automated systems were explored in other regions, such as Colorado. Some variations utilized a heavy counterweight intended to jerk the subject upward rather than dropping them through a trapdoor.

A challenge for these systems in the American West was the climate. To prevent the mechanism from failing due to frozen water during winter months, some jurisdictions experimented with using materials like lead shot to achieve the same weighted effect.

The use of automated gallows declined as states moved toward different methods, such as the electric chair or gas chambers, in the early 20th century. The original Julian gallows remained in occasional use at the Wyoming State Penitentiary until the mid-1930s.

The gas chamber. The prisoner was put inside and the door sealed. the prisoner was told to hold his or her breath while the gas was put in, causing them to take a deep breath to make death happen faster.

Cell Blocks and Facilities

The room we were standing in and where I took the photo from, was the room prisoners were brought in through and also the punishment room. The window was so new prisoners saw what was coming and in the case of a prisoner being punished, all the other prisoners could here and see what was happening as a deterrent.

Cell Block A- Hot water was not installed on this block until 1978.

Cell

Two crazy prisoners

The common shower room. Prisoners would not be given clean clothes until after their shower. There was no heat or hot water in this building at this time and still isn't in most of it. If other prisoners complained about someone smelling, the stinky one would be punished so they had no choice but to stay clean.

Cell Block C:  The Segregation Unit. This section was added on much later than the first, was for serious discipline cases and had heat and hot water.

The kitchen. Everyone liked to work in the kitchen because it was warm!

The meal trays were metal and since there was no heat, your meal was always cold. If any piece of silverware or dinner plate were not counted at the end of the meal, there would be a search to find it so it couldn't be used as a weapon.

This prisoner, Art, was a painter and his paintings were all over the cafeteria. Many of his paintings had subliminal messages. The sheep would be watching you no matter where you were standing (representing guards watching). 

A painting by Art. The message is "Always stay on the right side of the tracks."

Art's paintings were lining the walls of the cafeteria.

Notice the fencing above the painting. The guards stood behind that and could sick guns out the rectangle holes if needed. The painting meaning "the goal is to get out and live a life of peace and tranquility."

The prison water tower.

The outdoor recreation area. The corners all had guard towers.

A prisoner was just brought in!

The walls of the prison are thick concrete.

A movie was made in 1987 about the prison but the guard said it was so bad.

The Gentleman Bandit.

For more information:

Wyoming Frontier Prison

Discover Carbon County: The Old Pen

Old Pen and Carbon County Museum

We moved on to the Carbon County Museum.. This place was huge! 

If any of you have read or listened to the audio books by C.J. Box, the author is from here! His books are about Joe Picket, a Game warden and another series about Cassie Dewell who is a private investigator. 

The Story of Big Nose George 

***This story is included in the museum section because of some items that were IN the museum. If you're squeamish, skip down to the row of stars.

Frontier justice could be harsh, but few Wild West legends ended as badly for a bad guy as did the life of Big Nose George. You wouldn’t have wanted to walk a mile in his shoes, especially since his mortal soul became none other than a SOLE of a shoe—not just one shoe but a pair of shoes. In fact, George would be “reincarnated” into a variety of other unlikely objects, including a doctor’s bag and an ashtray.

George Parrott was born on March 20, 1834 in Montbeliard, France. Little is known about his early life or how he ended up in the Wild West 44 years later as a desperado, cattle rustler, highwayman, train robber, and, finally, murderer. It is one of those strange twists of fate that his last name, Parrott, was ironic in that he was born with an immense, hooked nose very much like a parrot. Thus, he came to be known by the nicknames “Big Beak Parrott” and “Big Nose George.” His distinctive face first showed up on “wanted” posters in Wyoming in 1878 for murder and train robbery. He and his gang of outlaws had tried to wreck a train near Medicine Bow, Wyoming, so they could rob it. Wyoming Deputy Sheriff Robert Widdowfield and Union Pacific Detective Tip Vincent and a posse pursued Big Nose George and his Union Pacific Detective Tip Vincent and a posse pursued Big Nose George and his gang to Rattlesnake Canyon, near Elk Mountain, where they were ambushed and Widdowfield and Vincent were killed.

Big Nose George continued to wreak havoc for several more years, robbing a Montana military convoy of 15 soldiers, two officers, an ambulance, and the Army payroll of between $4,000 and $14,000. The gang also held up several stagecoaches, including an especially profitable job in July 1880. The bounty on him quickly went up to $2,000.

Aside from a whopping bounty on his head, George had another big liability: he had a big mouth and liked to boast. When he bragged to a saloon dancer in Miles City, Montana, that he had killed two men and pulled off some big robberies, word quickly reached the sheriff. Within an hour, he was under an arrest, then returned to Wyoming for trial.

In Rawlins, Wyoming, he was sentenced on April 2, 1881 to hang. But in a scene right out of a Hollywood movie, he tried to escape 13 days before hanging day by knocking Sheriff Rankin unconscious. But, Mrs. Rankin, ever the vigilant wife, foiled his escape by locking the cell door before Parrott could reach it. A vigilante group of masked men decided to take justice into their own hands. Despite Sheriff Rankin’s pleading that they wait for the legal hanging day, they dragged the prisoner out and marched him to telegraph pole and threw a rope was over the crossbeam of a telegraph pole. The noose was secured around the prisoner's neck with Parrott standing on a barrel. But when they kicked the barrel out from under him, his toes touched the ground.

The mob cut him down, secured a ladder, then shortened the rope. Parrott dutifully climbed the ladder but, the vigilantes, wishing him to die a painful, lingering death pulled it out from him rather than having him jump from the top and he slowly strangled to death, tearing off one of his ears in the process, as 200 townspeople watched. George Parrott was 47 years old.

Doctors Thomas Maghee and John Eugene Osborne were present for the hanging to declare the condemned man dead. Since there were no kin to claim George’s remains, the doctors took possession of Parrott's body to study the outlaw's brain for clues of abnormality. The top of Parrott's skull was crudely sawn off, and the cap was presented to 15-year-old Lillian Heath, then a medical assistant to Maghee. She would become Wyoming’s first female doctor and is said to have used the skull cap as an ash tray.

The doctors also created a death mask, then Osborne began stripping skin from George’s chest, back and thighs. He had an idea; he sent the skin to a Denver tannery to be made into a pair of shoes and a medical bag. As an afterthought, Osborne cut off the nipples also, requesting they be placed at the toe ends of the shoes as ornamentation. (Wing tits?!) He was later disappointed when he received the shoes from the shoemaker, who had opted not to add the nipple flourishes. Nevertheless, Osborne later proudly wore the shoes to his inaugural ball after being elected Governor of the State of Wyoming in 1893.

The death of Big Nose George faded into obscurity over the years until May 11, 1950, when construction workers unearthed a whiskey barrel filled with bones while building the Rawlins National Bank on Cedar Street in Rawlins. Inside the barrel was a skull with the top sawed off, a bottle of vegetable compound, and the shoes said to have been made from Parrott's flesh. Dr. Lillian Heath, then in her eighties, was contacted and asked if she still had the skull cap of Big Nose George that she had been given nearly 60 years before. She brought the cap and it fit the skull in the barrel perfectly. Later, when DNA testing cane into use, they would also confirm the remains to be those of Big Nose George.

Big Nose George-photo from WyoHistory.org

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The first inmates were received on a cold December day in 1901. The original Cell Block (Cell Block A) had no electricity, no running water and inadequate heating.

Inmates were required to work and were responsible for many day-to-day tasks, including the production of goods in the prison's factory. Over the course of 80 year, the Wyoming State Penitentiary factory oversaw the operation of four primary industries: Broom factory, short factory, woolen mill and license plate production.

The Wyoming Frontier Prison is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

HATTIE LAPIERRE - #965

The Wyoming State Prison housed female prisoners from 1901 to 1909, Miss Hattie was one such woman. Frank McKinney, aka Harry Black, said Hattie LaPierre shot him in cold blood. Hattie said Harry took her into the street by force and threatened her life; therefore, her actions were based in fear and self-defense. McKinney died on September 19, 1905. While the events of September 14, 1904 was his word against hers, Hattie LaPierre was convicted of manslaughter in December 1905. Hattie entered the State Penitentiary in Rawlins in January 1906, serving one year.

-Text contributed by the Wyoming Frontier Prison

This looked like a really comfortable chair!

This is a murphy bed! I think it would be very cool for a guest room.

A bathtub carved from one single piece of sandstone. Hmmm...Better than nothing?

A big iron for table cloths and sheets. It would never get used at my house.

Next stop, Rock Springs, Wyoming