Council bluffs

Did you know there were such structures as rotary jails? Me either!

This short-lived fad in jail design was thought up by William H. Brown and built by Haugh, Ketcham & Co. during the late 1880s. Whilst it’s unclear how many of these rotary jails were actually built (the lowest count being seven, the highest eighteen), only three remain standing today. A one-story version located in Crawfordsville (Indiana), a two-story model in Gallatin (Missouri), and a three-story type in Council Bluffs (Iowa).

Don’t know what they look like? Well, first, toss aside all the images of the inside of Alcatraz and most prison movies you’ve got rattling around inside your head.

Now imagine a Merry-Go-Round.

Subtract all the horses, the odd stationary benches, the calliope, mirrors, and fun. Now, divide the bare platform into wedge-shaped rooms with a central shaft in the middle. Enclose the entire equally divided platform in a stationary floor-to-ceiling circular cage that sports a single gap. Finally, plunge beneath the round cell block’s floors into a small room that holds a hand crank. This mechanism allowed a single officer to rotate the platform upon which the cells rested, granting one cell access to the ingress/egress opening at a time.

The rotary jail in Council Bluffs, the largest of the three still standing, has ten cells per platform and can house two men per cell. In its heyday, the Pottawattamie County Jail could hold up to thirty men at a time. (Women had separate “accommodations”.)

And much like the Titanic, whose promoters labeled it unsinkable — rotary jails were touted as escape proof.

You can see where this is going.

The year after it was constructed (1888), the Pottawattamie County Jail saw its first jailbreak, another a couple years later, and yet another in 1902. The first two were accomplished by sawing through the bars across a window in a common area, and in the last, the inmates picked a lock, overcame the warden (and his wife), and scampered out. A different rotary jail saw two men bust through a metal plate next to the toilet in their cell, climb down the central shaft, then escape through an attached root cellar.

Despite the “escape proof-ness” not holding up well against the ingenuity of men with plenty of time on their hands, it did succeed in another of William H. Brown’s design aims — limiting contact between prisoners and jailers. To this end, thanks to the spaciousness of the central shaft, each cell was plumbed for and installed with a toilet. Thereby eliminating one of the most frequent interactions between an inmate and a warden.

Unfortunately, access to your own whizz station was about the only upside for the inmates living within a rotary jail. (Until the plumbing started acting up, which, according to the info I found, happened A LOT.)

While designed with maximum protection for guards in mind, the architect let prisoner safety fall by the wayside. Not only did the placement of the crank below the block of prison cells make it difficult (if not impossible) for someone to operate it in the event of a fire. Thereby rendering this style of jail a death trap for prisoners as well as any jailer trying to rescue them. The crank’s location, together with the noise of the moving platform, also ensured whoever operated it was out of earshot of any screams emanating from above.

I am not kidding.

Apparently, the stationary nature of the cage/bars surrounding the movable cells meant if a prisoner dangled a finger, foot, arm, or other appendage through the motionless bars when the floor started rotating and wasn’t fast enough pulling their limb back within the cell — said extremity would be crushed at best and amputated at worst.

What’s even more grim? Depending on the limb caught in the bars, it could cause the mechanism to seize up until removed. Leaving a prisoner with a horrific injury and unable to receive medical attention.

Speaking of the rotation mechanism, it’s what signed the death warrant on William H. Brown’s design. As every single one failed within the first few years of being constructed. Despite extensive remodeling and retrofitting (which usually saw the mechanism permanently disabled and the addition of doors to every cell), all the rotary jails were condemned by 1939.

Save for Pottawattamie County Jail.

A pic of the jail in Council Bluffs from the Des Moines Register in 1972.

Its rotation mechanism limped along until the mid-nineteen-sixties, when it too was sabotaged by city employees after the jailers were unable to retrieve an inmate’s corpse for two days after he passed away of natural causes in his cell. Despite overcoming this nightmarish event and the twenty-two other times one official or another condemned it — the last working rotary jail in the country was finally closed in December 1969…..

…..And in steps Elizabeth Dean, the mystery writer behind Murder is a Collector’s Item. An avid and active member in the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County, Elizabeth helped convince town officials the “Squirrel County Jail” (as it was known by the locals) would be a good tourist draw due to its uniqueness.

After she (and others) saved it from the wrecking ball, Elizabeth converted the jail’s pantry into an exhibit area and added some of her own antiques to fill out the display. Elizabeth then ensured its popularity by booking tours and selling tickets!

“Alcohol is a poor adhesive for a broken heart.” – Murder is a Collector’s Item

B: 1901 New York City, NY D: 1985 Council Bluffs, Iowa

Life:

Born Elizabeth Harriet Baker, Liz (as she preferred to be called) graduated from Pembroke College (now part of Brown University) and obtained her masters from Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After which, I believe, she worked in George McMahon’s antique shop.

In July of 1923, Liz married Abbot Dean and moved to his hometown of Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Six-ish years after giving birth to a son, Abbott Wilson Dean, Liz’s first book was published. She’d go on to write two more, plus short stories and essays, whilst living in Council Bluffs. However, sometime after Liz’s third book was written but before it was published, around 1943 or 1944 — Liz’s husband, Dr. Abbott Dean (now a trained ophthalmologist), was called back into the Navy (or was a career Navy man, it’s unclear) and was stationed near Pensacola, Florida, for the duration of WWII.

According to her son, in the Rue Morgue Press edition of Murder is a Collector’s Item, this massive change of home addresses disrupted Liz’s writing to the point where she could no longer capture the bright spark of Emma Marsh, ending the series after three novels.

Interestingly enough, Liz used the royalties of her first book to fill her home in Council Bluffs with antiques, which she later showed to the community during tours given via the Historical Society — of which she was a member. Liz’s other investment with her book royalties was in purebred Aberdeen Angus cattle, which she kept at her (and her husband’s) ranch in Colorado. Where, to escape some (apparently) awful seasonal allergies, Liz spent several sunny months at each year.

After Abbott left the Navy, he and Liz settled back in Council Bluffs, where she worked tirelessly for the Historical Society until her death in 1985.

Writing:

Liz’s first book, Murder is a Collector’s Item, started life as a piece of foolishness amongst friends. Apparently, one of Liz’s circle proposed they all write a work of fiction around 20,000 words in length and bring it around to the group one month later. Liz was the only one who finished by deadline day, and all her friends enjoyed it so much that they encouraged her to expand it to 80,000 words and submit it to a publisher.

It took a year to finish, but once it was, Doubleday’s Doran Crime Club happily printed it in 1939.

Liz drew on her own experiences working at an antique shop in Boston to aid in the realism of the setting in Murder is a Collector’s Item and based her fictional character, Jeff Graham, on her former boss, George McMahon. Liz’s third novel, one of the first to explicitly use Colorado as its setting, was based on Dean’s summers spent on the ranch she’d named “Buckshot”.

As for her writing method, Liz’s a woman after my own heart — knowing only the setting, the culprit, and the inciting incident that sets the mystery in motion, Liz would sit down at her typewriter “…and stare at the blank paper until I write something just to relive the monotony.”

Books: