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Imagine for a moment living your life in irons, including ankle cuffs that never come off. Imagine living in an unheated room with one tiny, glassless window equipped with bars, scant linens for your bed and a bucket in the corner for when nature calls. These were the accommodations for male prisoners in the Seatco Territorial Prison, also known as “Hell on Earth,” located in South Thurston County in the 1870s and 80s.

Until the year 1877, the entire Washington Territory lacked a prison. Criminals were incarcerated in jails run by local sheriffs with questionable security at a rate of a dollar per day per prisoner. In 1878 the Washington Territorial Legislature authorized a six-year contract with Thurston County Sheriff William Billings to build the first territorial prison in Seatco. According to Bucoda: The Little Town with a Million Memories, by Julie McDonald Zander, the contract also required Billings to “house, feed and clothe the convicts, caring for any who grew sick, recapturing any who escaped and employing them in suitable work. He could keep the profits from the lawbreakers’ labor.” The new Seatco prison would cost taxpayers 75 cents per day per inmate.

Seatco prison
This is an undated photograph of the infamous Seatco Territorial Prison which operated in Bucoda, WA from 1878 to 1887. Photo credit: Washington State Archives

The prison was constructed by Seatco land and mill owner, Oliver Shead. The 40 by 150-foot, three-story prison had walls constructed of Douglas fir planks. The cells were located on the first floor and the only access to the lower level was a single, narrow staircase on the second floor. A guard stood watch on the landing at all times. Each of the 36, eight-by-ten-foot cells featured a narrow window and dungeon like darkness.

It took some time for the population of prisoners to grow at Seatco. But, by the fall of 1879, there were 30 inmates.

The right to keep the wages of prisoners was a great incentive to keep the men working 9 to 12 hours a day. According to Zander, work included, “cutting firewood, clearing roads and land, or helping at local farms; other times toiling in Shead’s sawmill, a brickyard, or at the newly formed Seatco Manufacturing Company making sashes, doors and blinds. They also worked in the prison shoe and tailor shops, made casks and barrels in a cooper shop, and cut wood for the railroad.” In addition, convict labor was used to make bricks and mine coal, though that was a short-lived endeavor since it afforded prisoners too many opportunities for escape and possible access to explosives.

Former prisoner George France wrote extensively in 1890 about his time at what he called the “Seatco Bastille” in his book, Struggles for Life and Home in the North-West. “When the prisoners came in from work, the sight and clatter of chains was deafening and damnable, nearly all being in double irons, riveted to their legs, wearing them day and night, sick or well, all the time.”

Seatco Prison, Bucoda WA
This cell window replica with original window bars is located in Bucoda Town Hall where they also have a ball and chain and original iron gate from the Seatco Territorial Prison. Photo credit: Jessica Reeves-Rush

Tales of the “water cure,” teeth extracted as punishment and medical procedures without pain relief also came from France’s memoirs.

Yet, the prison was a source of political agitation. In Prairies and Quarries: Pioneer Days Around Tenino 1830-1888, by Arthur G. Dwelley, the author writes: “A political football from the time the idea was conceived, the contract prison received lots of publicity—most of which was bad.”

An editorial in the July 29, 1879, edition of the Puget Sound Weekly Argus, a newspaper in Port Townsend, paints a rather different portrait of the prison. The article, titled “A Trip to Seatco,” describes in detail the sturdiness and dimension of the building, the staffing, the productivity of prisoners and the impossibility of escape. The article states, “We found the institution in splendid condition, talked with some of the prisoners and found they were humanely treated.”

Seatco Prison history
The Seatco Prison Guards were often in charge of groups of prisoners sent out to work in various locations wearing shackles. The guards carried 44-40 Winchester Rifles to keep the prisoner in line. Photo credit: Washington State Historical Society

The author counters a statement by ex-prisoner, P.H. Conn, convicted of horse theft, which was printed in The Democratic Press. The Argus even suggested that the editor of The Democratic Press must be a friend of Conn’s to have run it without checking the facts. Conn’s statement must have testified to the horrible conditions of the prison, while The Argus steadfastly declares that all Conn’s claims are, “false from beginning to end” The Argus editorial goes on to say, “He never did any work, while confined, harder than gardening – and not even that one-third of the time. His watch was never taken from him, he was not “ironed,” and, if any fault can be found, it would be on the score of too easy treatment.”

The Seatco Prison closed in May of 1887, and the ninety-three remaining prisoners were transferred to the prison in Walla Walla. The penitentiary itself burned in 1907 but the site is marked with a commemorative stone located in the town of Bucoda in South Thurston County. The impact of the Seatco Prison, it may be argued, resonated in the community for many years. The prison created a town of industry that thrived in the 1880s and 1890s to the point that the population was greater than that of neighboring Tenino.

Seatco Prison Bucoda
This memorial for the Seatco Prison is located near a pleasant park on by the Skookumchuck River South Factory Street in Bucoda, Washington. The monument was a project of Neil Corcoran who is also memorialized on the stone for his work as Bucoda Historian and Mayor. Photo credit: Jessica Reeves-Rush

Incidentally, the name of the town changed shortly after the closure of the prison. Originally referred to as Seatco, the town officially became Bucoda in December of 1889. The name Seatco, in addition to being associated with the brutal prison, was also a Native American word believed to mean, “Haunted Place” or “Devil’s Place.” While the spooky associations with the name were once a black eye on the town, Bucoda now embraces its eerie past by changing its name each October to Boo-coda, participating in the national Thriller Dance and hosting two haunted houses: the Scary Nights Haunted House and the Family Friendly Haunted House.

A mass, unmarked grave for the Seatco prisoners who didn’t make it out alive because due to suicide, illness or being shot in escape attempts is located at the Forest Grove Cemetery in Tenino. To learn more about ex-Seatco prisoner George France, visit the Forest Grove Cemetery Tour on October 7 from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The tour will respectfully recount, through living history dramatizations, the tales of several notable Tenino and Bucoda citizens interred in the cemetery. The event is a Boy Scout Troop 9014 fundraiser in partnership with the South Thurston County Historical Society.

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