Armed guards in prison yard in Canon City shortly after the riot. Harry M. Rhoads photo.
By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com
Some papers called it the worst prison outbreak in history. The Record Journal of Douglas County follows:
SEVEN GUARDS AND FIVE CONVICTS LOSE LIVES IN CANON CITY PENITENTIARY RIOT MUTINY ATMNON CITY AFTER NIGHT OF WARFARE , CONVICTS LEADERS END STRIFE BY COMMITTING SUICIDE Canon City . —War raged ia the Colorado penitentiary last Thursday night, where the most desperate prison outbreak in the countrys history claimed twelve lives. Militiamen laid down a machine gun barrage, while dynamite charges were laid which blew away the end of cellhouse No . 3 , where nearly 200 convicts were barricaded. Within this same cellhouse a firing squad of bandits bad slaughtered four guards captured as hostages In the outbreak that occurred shortly after noon Thursday. These same convicts had issued an ultimatum that, unless granted autos and freedom, tbey would kill six or seven other guards whom they had captured. Three other guards were killed during tbe fighting that marked tbe first outbreak , and five convicts met death in the mutiny Four other guards who had been lined up for execution escaped by toppling over and shamming death. .
"The massacre of guards started about 7 o clock Thursday evening. A few minutes later the attacking forces were horrified when a body was hurled from a window of Uie beselged ccllbouse . When the body was approached it proved to be Guard Jack J , Eeles , shot four times but still barely alive . He died as he was removed to a hospital . The killing of Robert A . Wiggins , second of the murdered men, was witnessed through a window by some ot the guardsmen. He stood before a firing squad. Sometime between 7 aud 10 o clock two other guards wero murdered—Charles Shepherd and John W . McClelland—but their bodies were neither hurled from the windows nor sent out to the leaders of the attacking forces . They were found after the surrender, lying on tbo floor of the cellhouse corridor. Above the figures of all others in the mutiny loomed that of the superkiller—Danny Daniels . Four times, either single-handed or as leader ot a firing squad, he killed helpless guards who had been seized as hostages."
All over the world, 1929 was a pretty rough year for everyone. It was the established end of the Roaring Twenties. Stocks on Wall Street crashed. The Crash was the beginning of the global Great Depression. Additionally, the Influenza Epidemic continued to reach a large number of people, killing a total of 200,000 in 1929 around the world. Also in 1929, Herbert Hoover became President of the United States, and notorious Chicago gangster Al Capone was arrested. Here in Colorado, we were not spared that unfortunate year – when one of the bloodiest prison riots claimed the lives of 13 in early October then.
The headlines shrieked at the top of local, national an international newspapers at the time.
"The hero of the dynamiting attempts was a Catholic priest. Father Patrick O’Neill, who carried the bombs to the foot of the cell house wall, under cover of machine gun fire from the prison walls.
Three guards were killed at the outbreak of rioting yesterday and four more during the night. Those killed in the early rioting were Roy Brown, Walter Rinker and Elmer G. Erwin, John J. Elles, Robert A. Wiggins, Charles Shepherd and John W. McClelland were slaughtered in the cell house.
The convict dead included Danny Daniels, who led the rioting and acted as executioner of the guards; A.H. Davis, George (Red) Riley, James Pardue, and Albert Morgaridge, convict found dead in the prison yard," the reports across the country described.
"Pardue was wounded in the abdomen during the early rioting. Removed to cellhouse No. 3 by the other convicts, he was found this morning with a bullet through his head, fired by one of the other convicts to end his suffering," noted many accounts.
Three of the other ringleaders were found dead in the same cell, powder burns on their temples bearing mute testimony to shots fired at close range. The body of Daniels was in the doorway, sprawled half in and half out of the cell.
"He was found locked in a cell and it was necessary to take off the door to get him out. He was at first thought to be dead, but examination revealed he was not even wounded. He saw Elles, the prison hangman, shot down and saw his body tossed out of the cell house window."
Inside the building, the bodies of Charles Shepherd and McClelland, guards held hostage, also were found. These two guards, it appeared, had been murdered when the rioting was at its height last night.
The penitentiary will need to be completely rebuilt. The inmates are being quartered temporarily in tents erected inside the prison walls.
Warden Crawford today estimated the damage to the penitentiary at between $300,000 and $400,000. All the cell blocks except number three in which the mutinous convicts were barricaded, were destroyed by fire, and number three is badly damaged he said. When the prisoners were assembled for roll call this morning, four were reported unaccounted for. Prison officials expressed doubt, however, that they had escaped. They were believed to be in hiding somewhere in the ruins of the prison yard.
"Jimmie Pardue and Danny Daniels put their plan to escape prison into motion at around noon on October 3, 1929. Pardue shot and killed the first guard, Elmer Erwin, who was in the Crow's Nest. After taking Erwin's rifle, Pardue shot and killed Walter Rinker, who was on top of the administration building, and then shot and killed Ray Brown, who was in Tower 8. Guard Myron Goodwin was also shot, but didn't die until a week later on October 10," Gresham wrote.
"Pardue and Daniels held 11 guards hostage in Cell Block 3 for twelve hours. During this time, another group of 100 or so prisoners set a fire which destroyed Cell House 1 & 2, including the dining room, library and chapel, " she said.
"Daniels gave his demands to Warden Crawford for their release; Crawford, however, called in the National Guard. When Daniel's demands weren't met, he began killing his hostages execution style. He first shot guard Jack Eeles in the head and dropped his body from a window. Guards Walter Rinker and R.A. Wiggins were also killed."
"The Warden and National Guard tried several plans throughout the night to end the riot. 2,000 rounds of ammunition were shot into Cell Block 3. A charge of 150 pounds of dynamite was set off outside the wall of cell block 3, but the charge failed to bring down the wall. Finally, tear gas was dropped into the building and Daniels, seeing no way out of the situation, shot Pardue and two other prisoners who helped with the escape plan before turning the gun on himself at about 4:00 a.m. on the 4th of October," according to Gresham nearly a century after the riot.
"Reading through the newspaper reports of the riot, I can't imagine the fear and anxiety of having a loved one working in the prison. Margaret Brown's home was across the Arkansas River from the prison, within a mile of it. Surely, she heard the gunshots. Did friends gather with her at her home or did she go to a location where other family members of those who worked at the prison waited? One report highlights the plumes of smoke from the prison, the percussion of the dynamite blast broke windows in houses within ten miles of the prison, airplanes flew overhead day and night, and the constant gunfire throughout the night," she said.
One article in the Canon City Record shares the story of E.J. Hollister's family, "All through the terror-filled hours of the afternoon and night, they waited for word from their loved one - their husband and father... Each shot that rang out during that horror-filled night brought new terror, more heavy anxiety to Miss Grace Hollister, oldest of the three daughter, who waited in heart-breaking fear for news of her father."
Hearses await the remains of the dead at the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City, after the riot in 1929. Harry M. Rhoades photo. Denver Public Library. Special Collections.
The headlines shrieked at the top of local, national an international newspapers at the time.
"End Early Today To Mutiny In Colorado Prison TWELVE WERE KILLED IN RIOTS AT CANON CITY, COL. Guards Brutally Murdered And Bodies Thrown Out Of A Cell House
DAY AND A NIGHT OF HORROR THERE Convicts Surrendered After Four Leaders Ended Their Lives."
DAY AND A NIGHT OF HORROR THERE Convicts Surrendered After Four Leaders Ended Their Lives."
On Oct. 4, 1929, an Associated Press story in Sedalia Democrat, Pages 1 and 2, reported it this way:
"CANON CITY, Colo., Oct. 4.— One of the bloodiest prison mutinies in the nation's history, which claimed the lives of seven guards and at least five convicts, ended at the Colorado state penitentiary here this morning when the four ring leaders of the uprising committed suicide.
"Barricaded with more than 150 other convicts in cell house No. 3, surrounded by troops, police and prison guards, and hopelessly outnumbered, the ring leaders first killed a wounded comrade and then fired bullets into their own brains.
The other convicts then surrendered and were marched out of the cell house just at sunrise.
The mutiny left in its wake a list of twelve dead, and as many wounded, some of whom may die."
Other papers carrying the same version sub-headed "Disarmed and Slaughtered," and related what happened.
The other convicts then surrendered and were marched out of the cell house just at sunrise.
The mutiny left in its wake a list of twelve dead, and as many wounded, some of whom may die."
Other papers carrying the same version sub-headed "Disarmed and Slaughtered," and related what happened.
"Four of the dead were prison guards, disarmed and slaughtered in cold blood inside the cell house, to emphasize the convicts’ demand for unmolested freedom. Warden Francis E. Crawford, who declined all offers to parley with the embittered prisoners, was himself wounded during one of the attacks on the cell block.
The police response was described with qualifiers like "Resorted to Dynamiting."
"National guard troops and police details from four Colorado cities fired more than 7,000 rounds of ammunition into the convicts stronghold during the night. The battle was marked by two attempts to dynamite the cell house walls, one blast breaking all the windows, but failing to effect a breach in the masonry."
The police response was described with qualifiers like "Resorted to Dynamiting."
"National guard troops and police details from four Colorado cities fired more than 7,000 rounds of ammunition into the convicts stronghold during the night. The battle was marked by two attempts to dynamite the cell house walls, one blast breaking all the windows, but failing to effect a breach in the masonry."
"The hero of the dynamiting attempts was a Catholic priest. Father Patrick O’Neill, who carried the bombs to the foot of the cell house wall, under cover of machine gun fire from the prison walls.
Three guards were killed at the outbreak of rioting yesterday and four more during the night. Those killed in the early rioting were Roy Brown, Walter Rinker and Elmer G. Erwin, John J. Elles, Robert A. Wiggins, Charles Shepherd and John W. McClelland were slaughtered in the cell house.
The convict dead included Danny Daniels, who led the rioting and acted as executioner of the guards; A.H. Davis, George (Red) Riley, James Pardue, and Albert Morgaridge, convict found dead in the prison yard," the reports across the country described.
"Pardue was wounded in the abdomen during the early rioting. Removed to cellhouse No. 3 by the other convicts, he was found this morning with a bullet through his head, fired by one of the other convicts to end his suffering," noted many accounts.
Three of the other ringleaders were found dead in the same cell, powder burns on their temples bearing mute testimony to shots fired at close range. The body of Daniels was in the doorway, sprawled half in and half out of the cell.
"The floor of the cell house, which last night served as the execution chamber of four unarmed guards, was slippery with blood. The bodies of Charles Shepherd and John W. McClelland, two of the slain guards, were found in the cell house bound hand and foot. Both had been shot through the head.
Close estimates fix the time of the suicides of the riot leaders at 4 am, but it was not until an hour and a half later, at daybreak when O.E. Earl one of the surviving guards made his way into the prison yard, that the attacking forces learned of the fact, entered the cell house and rounded up the prisoners," according to reports at the time."
"Earl said he was afraid to leave the cell house until daylight, for fear of being mistaken for a convict and shot by the watchers on the walls. With him and the cell house were John Pease and Lawrence Roche, who escape the fury of the convicts. Roche's sister, Josephine, secretary to Warden Crawford had remained at the prison all night, fearing each minute to see her brother's bullet riddled body tossed out of a window of the cell house, as the bodies of Ellis and Wiggins were tossed out.
Giving her brother up for dead, she had left the prison shortly before daylight. When she learned that he was alive, she collapsed. Gutted by fire, which destroyed the dining room and chapel and two of the cell houses and scarred by machine gun bullets and dynamite, the prison yard this morning was in utter ruin," described the reports.Marvin Duncan, one of the guards in the cell house, was carried to a hospital this morning stark mad from terror," described Wire versions.
Close estimates fix the time of the suicides of the riot leaders at 4 am, but it was not until an hour and a half later, at daybreak when O.E. Earl one of the surviving guards made his way into the prison yard, that the attacking forces learned of the fact, entered the cell house and rounded up the prisoners," according to reports at the time."
"Earl said he was afraid to leave the cell house until daylight, for fear of being mistaken for a convict and shot by the watchers on the walls. With him and the cell house were John Pease and Lawrence Roche, who escape the fury of the convicts. Roche's sister, Josephine, secretary to Warden Crawford had remained at the prison all night, fearing each minute to see her brother's bullet riddled body tossed out of a window of the cell house, as the bodies of Ellis and Wiggins were tossed out.
Giving her brother up for dead, she had left the prison shortly before daylight. When she learned that he was alive, she collapsed. Gutted by fire, which destroyed the dining room and chapel and two of the cell houses and scarred by machine gun bullets and dynamite, the prison yard this morning was in utter ruin," described the reports.Marvin Duncan, one of the guards in the cell house, was carried to a hospital this morning stark mad from terror," described Wire versions.
"He was found locked in a cell and it was necessary to take off the door to get him out. He was at first thought to be dead, but examination revealed he was not even wounded. He saw Elles, the prison hangman, shot down and saw his body tossed out of the cell house window."
In some cases, the wire reports even described the conversations inside, as the drama played out.
- He stood by while Danny Daniels asked Wiggins, another guard, if he had said his prayers.
- "Yes." Wiggins replied without emotion. "Where do you want me to stand?"
- He heard Daniels say "right where you are," and fired a bullet through Wiggins' head.
- He heard Daniels tell John Shea, another guard, to take Wiggins' body out to the warden and tell him that Marvin Duncan would be the next guard to die.
- That was at 9:30 PM. From then until he lost his mind, he expected each moment to be his last. Prison physicians said his condition resembled shell shock.
- 15 feet inside the door lay the body of one of the guards, murdered last night by Daniels, the convicts said. A few feet further along laid the body of Daniels himself, leader of the riot and known executioner of at least three defenseless guards.
- The entering men came also upon the bodies of James Pardue and Major Davis, other ringleaders. It was evident they had shot themselves, the shots that killed them having been fired at close range. The features of the dead mutineers were mutilated.
- The convicts had made provision for a long siege. In one of the cells they had stacked 25 huge loaves of prison bread. Two long butcher knives that might have been used as weapons were found nearby. Marvin Duncan was still alive when taken from his cell. He was removed to Holmes hospital. Previously Duncan had been numbered among the dead.
Inside the building, the bodies of Charles Shepherd and McClelland, guards held hostage, also were found. These two guards, it appeared, had been murdered when the rioting was at its height last night.
The penitentiary will need to be completely rebuilt. The inmates are being quartered temporarily in tents erected inside the prison walls.
Warden Crawford today estimated the damage to the penitentiary at between $300,000 and $400,000. All the cell blocks except number three in which the mutinous convicts were barricaded, were destroyed by fire, and number three is badly damaged he said. When the prisoners were assembled for roll call this morning, four were reported unaccounted for. Prison officials expressed doubt, however, that they had escaped. They were believed to be in hiding somewhere in the ruins of the prison yard.
For years, relatives with a connection to the participants, also told their story. Writer Gayle Gresham succinctly related the following on her blog on the 89th anniversary of the riot.
"Pardue and Daniels held 11 guards hostage in Cell Block 3 for twelve hours. During this time, another group of 100 or so prisoners set a fire which destroyed Cell House 1 & 2, including the dining room, library and chapel, " she said.
"Daniels gave his demands to Warden Crawford for their release; Crawford, however, called in the National Guard. When Daniel's demands weren't met, he began killing his hostages execution style. He first shot guard Jack Eeles in the head and dropped his body from a window. Guards Walter Rinker and R.A. Wiggins were also killed."
"The Warden and National Guard tried several plans throughout the night to end the riot. 2,000 rounds of ammunition were shot into Cell Block 3. A charge of 150 pounds of dynamite was set off outside the wall of cell block 3, but the charge failed to bring down the wall. Finally, tear gas was dropped into the building and Daniels, seeing no way out of the situation, shot Pardue and two other prisoners who helped with the escape plan before turning the gun on himself at about 4:00 a.m. on the 4th of October," according to Gresham nearly a century after the riot.
"Reading through the newspaper reports of the riot, I can't imagine the fear and anxiety of having a loved one working in the prison. Margaret Brown's home was across the Arkansas River from the prison, within a mile of it. Surely, she heard the gunshots. Did friends gather with her at her home or did she go to a location where other family members of those who worked at the prison waited? One report highlights the plumes of smoke from the prison, the percussion of the dynamite blast broke windows in houses within ten miles of the prison, airplanes flew overhead day and night, and the constant gunfire throughout the night," she said.
One article in the Canon City Record shares the story of E.J. Hollister's family, "All through the terror-filled hours of the afternoon and night, they waited for word from their loved one - their husband and father... Each shot that rang out during that horror-filled night brought new terror, more heavy anxiety to Miss Grace Hollister, oldest of the three daughter, who waited in heart-breaking fear for news of her father."
Hearses await the remains of the dead at the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City, after the riot in 1929. Harry M. Rhoades photo. Denver Public Library. Special Collections.
The Associated Press, also carried the narrative from prisoner's perspective a day later, under the headline "Witness Tells of Outbreak."
The first eye witness story of the drama of horror which brought to an end the bloody prison uprising at the state penitentiary here early Friday morning came haltingly today from the lips of a terror-numbed convict who stood next to the cell in which Danny Daniels snuffed out the lives of three of his aides, and then his own. - "Aye about 4 o’clock in the morning," said the convict, who desired to remain unnamed, "Danny, who had been walking up and down the corridor in cellhouse number 3, called Red Riley and A. H. Davis to him in the cell where Jimmie Pardue lay wounded.
- "Boys’, he told them, ’we’re fighting a losing battle. What will we do?'
- "Pardue spoke up and said: ‘Danny, end it with me before the guards get me.’
- "Davis and Rinel agreed.
- "The two stood up. Daniels went into the cell, shot Pardue in the head, then shot Davis and Riley in succession. They fell upon each other and lay in a pile.
- "Then Daniels went outside the cell, walked up and down for a minute and then said ‘well, my pals are gone. The guards are all dead. I'll end it.’
- "He put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
- "All the while, Daniels was as cool as could be. All of his killings were deliberate and calculated. He talked over his killings with convicts, nonparticipants, in the cells.
- "Once he said: ‘We didn’t intend to kill a man when we started. If Short Irwin (the first guard) had not hit Jimmie Pardue when Jimmie told him to turn over the gun he had, we would not have done it. We had to kill Short when he resisted, and we didn’t care. I’ll kill every guard except one or two who have been good to me. Old Jack Shea is OK. He can go’.
- Danny told Shea it was because Shea had once seen to it that a convict, deprived of his supper, had been fed. Danny knew about it, because Shea had Danny take the food to him.
- "Danny told Shea it was that one act which saved his life.
- "Danny questioned each guard before he killed him. He told J. J. Eelles, the first guard killed in cellhouse number 3, that he was going to kill him because he had hanged so many condemned convicts. He fired four shots into his body.
- "Then he went along the cells and told the other guards that he could not do the same with them because he didn’t have enough shells. "You’ll have to get along with one slug,’ he told them, and then he laughed.
- "His methods were cruel in the extreme.
- "He said to R. A. Wiggins, the second guard killed:
- " ‘Wiggins, did you ever hang a man?’ ”
- "Wiggins said he had not.
- " ‘Well, you’re next, anyway."
- "He did not call him out of the cell for fifteen minutes after that. When he did, he laughed and said:
- 'Well, Wiggins, have you said your prayer?'”
- Then he shot him.
SEVEN GUARDS AND FIVE CONVICTS LOSE LIVES IN CANON CITY PENITENTIARY RIOT MUTINY ATMNON CITY AFTER NIGHT OF WARFARE , CONVICTS LEADERS END STRIFE BY COMMITTING SUICIDE Canon City . —War raged ia the Colorado penitentiary last Thursday night, where the most desperate prison outbreak in the countrys history claimed twelve lives. Militiamen laid down a machine gun barrage, while dynamite charges were laid which blew away the end of cellhouse No . 3 , where nearly 200 convicts were barricaded. Within this same cellhouse a firing squad of bandits bad slaughtered four guards captured as hostages In the outbreak that occurred shortly after noon Thursday. These same convicts had issued an ultimatum that, unless granted autos and freedom, tbey would kill six or seven other guards whom they had captured. Three other guards were killed during tbe fighting that marked tbe first outbreak , and five convicts met death in the mutiny Four other guards who had been lined up for execution escaped by toppling over and shamming death. .
"The massacre of guards started about 7 o clock Thursday evening. A few minutes later the attacking forces were horrified when a body was hurled from a window of Uie beselged ccllbouse . When the body was approached it proved to be Guard Jack J , Eeles , shot four times but still barely alive . He died as he was removed to a hospital . The killing of Robert A . Wiggins , second of the murdered men, was witnessed through a window by some ot the guardsmen. He stood before a firing squad. Sometime between 7 aud 10 o clock two other guards wero murdered—Charles Shepherd and John W . McClelland—but their bodies were neither hurled from the windows nor sent out to the leaders of the attacking forces . They were found after the surrender, lying on tbo floor of the cellhouse corridor. Above the figures of all others in the mutiny loomed that of the superkiller—Danny Daniels . Four times, either single-handed or as leader ot a firing squad, he killed helpless guards who had been seized as hostages."
Click on following to view old news reel footage of the riot:
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