THE DREADED DEBTOR’S PRISON

                 THE  DREADED DEBTOR’S  PRISON

                                NORMAN  V.  KELLY

Way back in Peoria’s early history our authorities had exactly the same problems that our current leaders have. The more I delved into our history the truer this fact became. Let’s just go back as far as 1878 when the City of Peoria was a whopping 33 years old. Our population was closing in on 29,000 people within our city limits which were not quite seven square miles.  We had more than our share of breweries and distilleries and we were quite a cosmopolitan city.  We were the Gem along the Illinois River and folks were moving here in rather large numbers.  Of course the population out in the rural county also grew and things were really looking up for the folks here in the Heart of Illinois.

 

Of course all those people and all that beer and whiskey and downtown activity needed a rather alert police department which found itself busy keeping law and order.  We had a good court system and along with our judges we had magistrates and Justices of the Peace which handled a lot of the smaller cases.  Most of those crimes were settled by fining the perpetrator since we had very little in the way of a major jail in which to keep them.  The City Fathers decided that they would build a House of Correction for these minor violators.  This came about since the perpetrators rarely paid the fines that were legally imposed upon them.  The real truth is that most of these men were flat-out alcoholics but I can tell you that we never called them that; to Peoria’s citizens they were simply called ‘Bums.’  I remember warnings from the adults in my family to stay away from bums and that if any of them came up to us we were to simply run away.  The medical aspect of being a ‘Drunken Bum’ was a long way from the knowledge we have today about Alcoholism being a medical problem.

Many of these men and certainly some women as well were often arrested, taken before the courts, fined and released.  Of course they never paid the fines so the House of Correction was built way down in the north end of Peoria for $10,701.00 by the Valentine Construction Company. Later, after the expenses of buying the land and a large brickyard and other incidentals for a total of $18,000.00 the City of Peoria was in the prison business.  Quickly the place was referred to as “The Dreaded Debtor’s Prison.” Many people referred to it as the “Work House.”

 

Talk about a merry-go-round; that is exactly what this place was.  Police would round up these unfortunates, toss them in holding cells and get them to a magistrate or JP and then take them to the debtor’s prison.  This went on around the clock, seven days a week.  The fines were still not paid, but they had the culprit in ‘jail’, and he stayed there until the debt was paid off by the sweat of his brow.  The prisoner was paid fifty-cents a day for his labors, which were mainly in the brick yard and on the street repair gangs.  Sadly, once the $10.00 or $20.00  fine was worked off, the man was released to repeat the process…which he did. Of course he came back, again and again.  Some of these men spent their entire adult lives coming and going inside the House of Correction. I never saw one mention of any law suits or any other major complaints by the ‘do-gooders’ in Peoria talking about violating those men’s rights.  Hell, none of them could afford a lawyer. The sad truth is the officials of this city along with the approval of the citizens had a problem with these bums and the debtor’s prison was the answer.  It was that simple.  In fact it worked out splendidly for the city, and believe me they worked these people pretty much six days a week.  The truth is it worked out so well that they added a rather large women’s wing to the prison and it quickly filled up.  Just think of it, most of our bricks were made by Peoria prisoners and they also worked on city property and our streets for forty-one years. The ladies worked in laundries and kitchens and in all kinds of other labors to pay off their fines. Talk about cheap labor, we invented it.

 

The newspaper editors referred to these people as “The Bungeroo Gang,” and spoke of them often in short articles about some of their activities, telling the readers that most of these men and women were “paregoric fiends and opium addicts.”

 

Peoria County officials welcomed the prison and got in bed with city officials to handle its ‘Bum’ problem.  The County agreed to pay the City of Peoria forty-five cents a day to house their county prisoners.  Finally on the day Prohibition began, January 16, 1920 the entire complex was closed down.   Now that the taverns, breweries and distilleries were closed down and out of business there would be no need for prisons.  Listen to what Reverend Billy Sunday preached all over America for years and years about the wonders of Prohibition.

 

“The rein of terror is over. The slums will be a memory.

  We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails

   into store houses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, and women will smile and children will laugh.  Hell will be forever for rent.   To that I add…what a cruel joke.  Editor’s Note:  Norm is a Peoria Historian and true crime writer and contributes monthly to Adventure Sports Outdoors.

norman.kelly@sbcglobal.net