Friday, September 9, 2011

The Federal Correctional Institution at Sandstone: A History - Part 1

          In 1931, the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression. After the stock market crash on “Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929, the country faced an economic catastrophe. By the end of the year, horrified stockholders had lost approximately $40 billion. Businesses and industries floundered and failed. As 1930 drew to a close, over four million workers were without jobs. Banks collapsed, and in these days before FDIC insurance, people lost their entire life savings. Farmers struggled as their markets collapsed and bad weather destroyed their crops. A mood of gloom and despair settled over the nation. (1)
          Sandstone was not immune from the hardships of the Great Depression. Sandstone's economy centered on its famous sandstone quarry. Founded by William Grant in 1885, the quarry produced high-quality building stone that was shipped across the United States and Canada for use in the construction of public and commercial buildings, private homes, bridges, monuments, and other structures. In the mid-1920s, the Sandstone Quarries Company began producing Kericon Koncrete products at its new concrete manufacturing plant. (2) Sandstone was also well-known as a division point on the Great Northern Railway. With its twenty-stall round house, multiple tracks, and “modern” depot (built in 1922), Sandstone depended on the railroad industry as fundamental to its economic success. (3) By 1931, both the quarry and railroad industries were in decline. (4) The market for quarry stone tapered off as the building trade deteriorated, and fewer people could afford to ride the rails or ship their products to ever-weakening markets. Sandstone's businessmen and village leaders began to get nervous about the fate of their town in such a troubled economy. Would Sandstone survive the Great Depression?
          Ray Barstow, president of Sandstone's First National Bank, was determined to answer that question with a resounding “yes”. Mr. Barstow had recently studied the 1929 congressional report on the conditions of the nation's prisons. The report, which focused on overcrowding in the federal prison system, had spurred several federal judges in Minnesota to call for the establishment of more federal prison farms in the northern part of the state. These farms, they thought, would offer better living conditions and the possibility of valuable work and rehabilitation opportunities. (5) Mr. Barstow firmly agreed and decided that he knew just the right place for one of these federal prison farms. There was a piece of uncleared land across the Kettle River to the east of Sandstone that would be a perfect site. (6) A prison farm, Mr. Barstow reasoned, would bring revenue and jobs into Sandstone to make up for the economic downturn in the quarrying and railroad industries. He quickly enlisted the help of Minnesota Senator Adolph Larson, Dr. Homer P. Dredge, and businessman John F. Hawley. (7) “The prison farm four,” as these Sandstone men came to be known, called a meeting of Sandstone's leading citizens and formed the “Prison Farm Committee” with the goal of winning a federal prison farm for Sandstone. (8)
          The prison farm four and their colleagues were well aware that bringing a federal prison farm to Sandstone was going to involve hard work, but they could not have realized that when they started their venture in 1931 that eight years would pass before the prison would actually open. The U.S. Department of Justice had already announced its intention to build a new prison farm in Minnesota, but Sandstone was not alone in its bid for the new institution. Fourteen other communities were competing “strenuously” to be chosen. (9) Sandstone, however, had the unique advantage of being positioned half way between the Twin Cities and Duluth, the cities that provided most of the Minnesota prison population. In June of 1931, Superintendent of Federal Prisons Sandford Bates, visited Sandstone to inspect the proposed site. He must have been impressed, for in October, he officially recommended Sandstone as the location for the new prison farm. In the meantime, the Sandstone committee had been busy securing options to purchase the necessary land, 2,885 acres, which it could soon offer to the government at the rate of $5 per acre. (10) On November 10, 1931, Sandstone's residents received the exciting news that their bid for the federal prison farm had been approved by U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell. The village fire siren blew, and the citizens celebrated long into the night. (11) Perhaps things were finally looking up for their town.

1. Thomas A. Baily and David M. Kennedy, The American Pageant, vol. 2, 10th ed. (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Company, 1994), 783-784.
2. Muriel Langseth, ed., Sandstone, the Quarry City (Dallas: Taylor Publishing Company, 1989), 19, 40, 44.
3. Ibid., 56, 57, 59.
4. Ibid., 149.
5. Edgar A. Hubin, Founding of a Prison (Sandstone: U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Correctional Institution, 1963).
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.; Lanseth, 149.
8. Hubin.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.

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