“Reformatory Inmates Are Working In State Park” from the June 10, 1926 Door County News
Reformatory Inmates Are Working In State Park
FISH CREEK—Cleaning up the deteriorating and diseased abandoned orchards which constitute part of the state land in Peninsula State park, Door county, a force of 12 picked inmates from the Wisconsin State reformatory has formed the nucleus of the Institution’s “honor farm.” The course was authorized a few weeks ago by the state board of control.
Headquarters have been established in some of the farm buildings, which have been refitted and remodeled, and here the 12 men stay, under supervision of only one officer. There are no bars, and no physical means of preventing an escape, but the men have no desire to escape. Assignment to this farm is an honor and an indication of trust. Making good usually means an early parole. Betrayal of the confidence of the institution authorities means loss of any further chances.
Start Cleanup Work
When the state took over Peninsula park, the tract Included a number of abandoned orchards. Cultivation of these orchards was no part of the state park plan, and they were allowed to lie idle, with the result that they became infested with quack grass and other weeds, and disease began to spread among the trees. Lest other orchards in the county become infected, it was decided to clean up these tracts, and labor from the reformatory was decided upon as the most satisfactory method of doing the work.
This year’s program will only be devoted to eliminating the quack and diseased trees. Next year, it is hoped, some pruning will be done, and eventually the orchards may be back on a producing basis. Some potatoes have been planted, and it is expected that all the food necessary for the orchard crew, except meat and bread, will be raised on the grounds. The camp is in charge of Officer William Holland, while Supt. Doolittle, of Peninsula State Park, and Glen Householder, superintendent of state farms, are supervising the work.
The institution now has 55 men on honor farms. There are 31 at Farm No. 1, Oneida; 12 at the Door county farm, and 12 at Camp Douglas.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
[There is approximately 150 acres of state-owned land outside the right-of-way along Highway 57 adjacent to the Park & Ride lot in the town of Brussels, https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/travel/road/parknride/door1501.aspx. If state officials have decided not to build a prison on this land and have no other use for it, such as for a rest stop, it ought to be sold.
Working “away from the grounds of the institution” is allowed under 303.063, and 303.03 states that prison inmates’ labor may be utilized “outside the institution’s yard in cultivating the farms or in doing any necessary work in the prosecution of the regular business of the institution or of other state institutions or of any other activity of the state or of any political subdivision thereof or in the construction of buildings by the state”.
State parks are “other state institutions”.
Additionally, jail and prison inmates can be taken “away from the institution grounds for rehabilitative and educational activities” under 302.15, and counties may operate reforestation camps under 303.07.]
Articles about Peninsula Park
http://doorcounty.substack.com/t/peninsula-park