Summary: IT WAS A TYPICAL balmy August evening at the Oregon State Penitentiary. The bell had rung for supper, so inmates were streaming out of their cells and heading toward the dining hall for the evening meal, as they always did. But on this particular evening, four prisoners hung back from the throng, and when the last prisoner had rounded the corner out of sight, they doubled back, hurrying into the cell that had been assigned to one of their number. Working feverishly with an auger stolen somehow from the prison’s shops, they cut a hole in the roof and pulled and boosted each other up through it. One of the most legendary jailbreaks in Oregon history had just started, and the die had been cast that would lead to the men’s doom. It was August 13, 1925; not one of the four prisoners would live to see 1929. (Salem, Marion County; 1920s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-05.bloody-1925-prison-break-621.html)
