Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 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 i>enitentiary on McNeil’s Island, Wash., escaped Bunday 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 and Davis, revealed the means of escape. The wall is about a foot thick, and the floor of the cell is of the same thickness, and is covered with concrete. A tqunel was dug at the junction of the. wall and the floor, sloping outwardly, until it formed a connection with the air chamber about two feet below and a foot from the corridor wall of the cel). ' - Through this air chamber the prisoners crawled forty feet to where it opened into the boiler room, the opening being covered by an iron grating. This obstacle was overcome by the use of saws, and the prisoners bad then only to walk out of the back door of the boiler room and across the yard ami 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 and wooden wedges to burrow through the brick.