Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 January 1902 — DIG PATH TO LIBERTY. [ARTICLE]

DIG PATH TO LIBERTY.

Desperate Criminals Escape from Prison on McNeil’s Island. Eleven of the most desperate prisoners in the United States penitentiary on McNeil’s Island, \Uash., escaped Sunday afternoon. It was the most daring and successful jail breaking ever attempted in the State. A hole in the brick wall of cell No. 10, which was occupied by Convicts Snyder nnd Davis, revealed the means of escape. The wall is about a foot thick, anil the floor of the cell is of the same thickness, and is covered with concrete. A tunnel was dug at the junction of the wall and the floor, sloping outwardly, until it formed a connection with the nir chamber about two feet below and a foot from the corridor wall of the cell. ’ Through this air chamber the prisoners crawled forty feet to where it opened into the boiler room, the opening being covered by nn iron grating. This obstacle was overcome by the use of inw», and the prisoners liad then only to walk out of the back door of the boiler room and across the yard nnd scale the board fence. A few yards from the prison grounds the dense growth of timber afforded them a safe retreat temporarily. Warden Palmer believes the prisoners used a spoon aud wooden wedges to burrow through the brick.