Before Oklahoma became a state in 1907, felons convicted in the Oklahoma Territory were sent to the Kansas State Penitentiary located in Lansing, Kansas.
Upon statehood, Kate Barnard became the Oklahoma Commissioner of Charities and Corrections. She first visited the Kansas prison during the summer of 1908 after many Oklahoma inmates had began complaining of mistreatment. She blended in with other visitors and took the regular tour. Upon completion of the tour, she identified herself to prison officials and asked that she be allowed to inspect the facility. That inspection uncovered widespread torture of inmates.
When she returned to Oklahoma, she strongly urged that all Oklahoma inmates be returned to the state. The Governor, Charles N. Haskell, supported her proposal. Within 2 months of Barnard’s visit to Kansas, two groups of 50 inmates were sent by train to McAlester. They were temporarily housed in the former federal jail in town. Warden Robert W. Dick instructed they build a stockade to house themselves on a 120 acre plot, which was donated by a group of McAlester citizens.
The Oklahoma inmates that had remained in Lansing were moved to USP Leavenworth until the state could build adequate facilities to house them all. By the following spring, in 1909, the Oklahoma Legislature had appropriated $850,000 to build the permanent facility.
Construction began that May on a facility designed after USP Leavenworth. The state purchased a little over 1,500 acres. They used prison labor to complete construction. The steep hills and grades required more than 6,250 cubic yards of concrete and more than 2,000,000 cubic yards of rocks and soil to be moved just for the prison walls. By 1935, the prison had added a shoe manufacturing plant and a tailor shop as part of the prison’s inmate industry program. An improvement from the local mines the inmates were forced to work while at Lansing.
The first prison escape (from behind the walls) occurred on January 19, 1914. Three inmates stole a gun and killed three prison employees and a visiting retired federal judge and former congressman, John Robert Thomas, during the escape attempt.
Bank robber David Koontz, horse thief China Reed and Tom Lane, convicted of forgery, drew a weapon on J.W. Martin and demanded he open an inner gate near the prison storeroom. It was unclear how Koontz had acquired the Smith and Wesson six shooter he held in Martin’s face. Most believed, at the time, that an accomplice had smuggled the weapon to him.
The plan of the convicts was to enter the administration area of the prison, take a hostage and then walk out of the front gate. They managed to succeed in their plan, but at the cost of the lives of four men at the penitentiary. No one seemed to know exactly how, but each of the three prisoners had obtained a revolver.
Koontz and his cohorts first entered the warden’s office. But warden R.W. Dick was away at a prison farm outside the walls, so a deputy had allowed Judge John R. Thomas use of the room to speak with a client who was serving a life sentence at the prison. Inmate Frank Haikey was a Cherokee who had been convicted before Oklahoma statehood, so his appeal was being held up until the correct jurisdiction could be determined. Judge Thomas was meeting with the man to explain the process.
When the escapees burst into the room, Haikey saw them first and gave a warning cry. Judge Thomas stood with his hands raised and tried to explain that he was a visitor and not a prison employee. It made no difference to Koontz who without hesitation shot the judge in the chest.
The three men continued through the offices, shooting in quick succession a storehouse sergeant Fred Godfrey, the assistant deputy warden, D.C. Oats, and a records clerk, Correctional Officer Herman Drover. They then seized Mary Foster, a stenographer in the parole office. Oats, still alive though mortally wounded, pulled his weapon, and J.W. Martin rushed in with a shotgun and the two men fired toward the escapees. Koontz was wounded, but Reed grabbed his gun and returned fire.
The prisoners used a key they had taken from Martin to open the outer door of the prison and marched Miss Foster down the broad front walk to the gate. Reed had his arm around the woman’s neck and the gun resting on her shoulder. The guards at the gate, all armed with Winchesters, held their fire because of the hostage. The prisoners passed through the gate into freedom.
A horse and buggy were standing nearby, so the men forced Foster into the vehicle and raced away from the prison. Three-quarters of a mile to the west, an officer named R.L. Ritchie took a stance to stop the men. When they approached, he ordered them to halt three times, but they refused.
Ritchie fired, striking Reed in the head just inches away from Miss Foster. The officer had not been aware that Foster was a hostage but thought she was an accomplice. Had he known, he likely would not have fired. He managed to strike the other two prisoners as well resulting in all three being killed.
While a great deal of excitement had stirred in the prison, no other convicts attempted to escape, and order was quickly restored. But not before seven men had lost their lives. The body of Judge Thomas was brought to his home in Muskogee where hundreds came to pay their respects. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Correctional Officer Herman Drover, Deputy Warden D. C. Oates, and Sergeant Fred Godfrey lost their lives that day.
Correctional Officer Herman Drover was 49 years old and is buried in the Masonic section of Oak Hill Memorial Park Cemetery in McAlester, Oklahoma.
Deputy Warden D.C. Oates, 43, had been with the agency for seven years and was survived by his wife and five children.
Sergeant Fred Godfrey, 38, had been with the agency for two years and was survived by his wife. He is buried in Rosemound Cemetery in Medford, Oklahoma.
We thank you and your families for your service.