The Kentucky State Penitentiary (KSP), also known as the "Castle on the Cumberland," is a maximum security and
supermax prison with capacity for 856 prisoners located in
Eddyville, Kentucky
Eddyville is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Lyon County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 2,554 at the 2010 census, up from 2,350 in 2000. The Kentucky State Penitentiary is located at Eddyville. The town is cons ...
on
Lake Barkley
Lake Barkley, a reservoir in Livingston County, Lyon County and Trigg County in Kentucky and extending into Stewart County and Houston County in Tennessee, was impounded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1966 upon the completion of Bark ...
on the Cumberland River, about from downtown Eddyville. It is managed by the
Kentucky Department of Corrections
The Kentucky Department of Corrections is a state agency of the Kentucky Justice & Public Safety Cabinet that operates state-owned adult correctional facilities and provides oversight for and sets standards for county jails. They also provide trai ...
. Completed in 1886, it is Kentucky's oldest prison facility and the only commonwealth-owned facility with supermax units. The penitentiary houses Kentucky's male
death row
Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting Capital punishment, execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of ...
inmates and the commonwealth's
execution
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...
facility. it had approximately 350 staff members and an annual operating budget of $20 million. In most cases, inmates are not sent directly to the penitentiary after sentencing, but are sent there because of violent or disruptive behavior committed in other less secure correctional facilities in the commonwealth.
This was Kentucky's second penitentiary. The first
Kentucky State Penitentiary in Frankfort
The Kentucky State Penitentiary in Frankfort was the first prison built West of the Allegheny Mountains and completed June 22, 1800 when Kentucky was still virtually a wilderness. The Kentucky Legislature of 1798 had appointed Harry Innes, Alexa ...
was made uninhabitable from the 1937 flood.
History
An Act passed both houses of the Kentucky Legislature 28 April 1884 providing for a branch penitentiary to be located in
Eddyville, Kentucky
Eddyville is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Lyon County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 2,554 at the 2010 census, up from 2,350 in 2000. The Kentucky State Penitentiary is located at Eddyville. The town is cons ...
. Former Confederate States brigadier general and Eddyville native
Hylan Benton Lyon
Hylan Benton Lyon (February 22, 1836 – April 25, 1907) was a career officer in the United States Army until the start of the American Civil War, when he resigned rather than fight against the South. As a Confederate brigadier general, he le ...
was the moving force behind the Kentucky State Branch Penitentiary being located in what is now Old Eddyville. A hill overlooking the Cumberland River was chosen as the site for the new prison. Construction of the Kentucky State Branch Penitentiary began in 1884, using massive granite blocks quarried from a site down the Cumberland. Italian stonemasons were recruited to erect the original buildings, which resemble medieval castles.
Commissioners
1880 - 3 Prison Commissioners appointed to find a location for a branch penitentiary
Judge
Richard H. Stanton (1812-1891)
Hylan B. Lyon, (1836-1907)
William Morgan Beckner, (1841-1910)
Name Changed
A part of the 1910 reform bill was to separate convicts by age and crime. All convicts under 30 years of age should be kept in a reformatory and those over 30 years of age should be kept in a penitentiary.
The "Branch Penitentiary" had been built in
Eddyville,
Lyon County, and officially opened December 24, 1890 to ease the overcrowding of the Frankfort Penitentiary. The 1910 reform bill also stated that the electric chair should be housed in a penitentiary and a death house built. Frankfort Penitentiary did not want it. Frankfort didn't have the room nor did they want the curiosity seekers.
In 1912 The Frankfort Penitentiary officially became the Kentucky State Reformatory and the Branch Penitentiary became the Kentucky State Penitentiary.
Kentucky State Penitentiary – Kentucky Department of Corrections
Construction
The "Branch Penitentiary" construction started 1884 and was completed the end of 1890. Eddyville Branch Penitentiary completed and turned over to the State December 24, 1890.
A total of $484,143.93 was appropriated by the Legislature for their construction, of which $470,753.41 was expended. Capacity when finished: 1,000.
Founding
Before the penitentiary was built, prison life in Kentucky was horrific. An 1875 study showed that 20 percent of the inmates in the Kentucky State Prison had pneumonia and seventy-five percent had scurvy. The prison was a place of "slime covered walls, open sewage, and graveyard coughs
" Approximately seventy of the one-thousand prisoners had died in 1875. Prison life was something that Kentucky officials had really never focused on until Governor
Luke P. Blackburn. He was elected governor in 1879 and immediately convinced the legislature to approve of a new prison.
1889–1908
By 1889, the penitentiary was overcrowded. The General Assembly allowed some inmates to work outside of prison walls, sometimes even unsupervised. In the first few years, around half of the fifty inmates working outside of the prison managed to escape. Abuse rates by the guards and over-seers against the prisoners were at their highest ever, mainly because no one was supervising the handling of the prisoners. Finally, in the early 1890s, this law was abolished and all inmates were forced to stay in the penitentiary. It was almost full immediately.
1909–1987
In 1909, a law was created so that the inmates were no longer required to wear stripes. Inmates would wear baggy denim pants and jackets, cloth hats, and cotton shirts. They also would have numbers stenciled on their backs. Although this was passed, the ball and chain would still be used as punishment for prison offenders until 1940. In the 1940s, the prison began to get rid of all of the convicts under age eighteen. Most of them were sent to the reformatory.
The main issue with the Kentucky State Penitentiary in this period was the correctional officer force, always low in numbers and low-paid.
The electric chair was installed at Eddyville penitentiary September 1910. The Frankfort Penitentiary would soon be called Reformatory.
The penitentiary was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1981 as part of the
Old Eddyville Historic District
The Old Eddyville Historic District, located off KY 730 in Eddyville, Kentucky, is an historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. It included 13 contributing buildings.
It includes the surviving p ...
.
From 1988
On June 17, 1988, eight convicts, three being murderers on death row, escaped from the Kentucky State Penitentiary. This occurred at about 2 a.m. sneaking around the fires set by other inmates. The inmates sawed through cell bars, walked through the cell-house doors, and climbed approximately thirty feet to a window using an electrical extension cord.
On July 1, 1997, Kentucky executed its first inmate in thirty five years.
Harold McQueen, 44 years old, was convicted in 1981 of murdering Rebecca O' Hearn, a convenience store clerk, during a robbery that netted him $1,500. Harold McQueen was electrocuted at 12:07 a.m. Over one hundred death penalty opponents and twenty five supporters of capital punishment protested outside of the penitentiary.
On November 21, 2008 death row inmate
Marco Allen Chapman
Marco Allen Chapman (September 4, 1971 – November 21, 2008) was a convicted murderer and the most recent person executed by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He was executed on November 21, 2008 by lethal injection at the Kentucky State Penitentia ...
, convicted of murdering two northern Kentucky children in 2002, was executed by lethal injection, the most recent at Kentucky State Penitentiary.
On January 13, 2014, inmate James Kenneth Embry Jr., died of starvation and dehydration following a
hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...
. In March, following inquiries by the
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
, Kentucky Corrections Commissioner
LaDonna Thompson asked the state Attorney General's office to review Embry's death.
In July 2016 author Steve E. Asher published Hauntings of the Kentucky State Penitentiary, a book of accounts of paranormal activity at KSP.
On July 1, 2018, DeEdra Hart was named the first female warden in the history of the Kentucky State Penitentiary. Hart previously served as warden of the
Green River Correctional Complex
Green River Correctional Complex is a state prison located in Central City, Kentucky. It opened in 1994 and had a prison population of 982 as of 2007.
It is a medium security adult male correctional facility and it is operated by the Kentucky J ...
and as deputy warden of the
Western Kentucky Correctional Complex
Western Kentucky Correctional Complex (WKCC) is a segregated, dual-sex, medium-security prison in Lyon County, Kentucky, near the city of Fredonia. , the facility had 693 prisoners (493 men and 200 women).
History
The facility was built in 19 ...
DeEdra Hart Named Warden at Kentucky State Penitentiary
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The prison is currently under the administration of veteran Warden Scott Jordan who was appointed in 2020 after serving as the Warden for four years at the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in Lagrange Ky.
Distinctions
Five distinct custody levels make up the KSP inmate population. Inmates wear a specific color uniform based on their custody level. Those levels and their respective uniform colors are:
*General population – khaki
*Protective custody – kelly green
*Administrative segregation – canary yellow
*Death row – scarlet red
*Minimum security – dark green (see below)
In addition to the main facility, there is a small minimum security unit outside the walls of the institution whose inmates have work assignments throughout the facility & grounds. Inmates in the minimum security unit are given additional privileges, including fishing in Lake Barkley in their spare time.
References
External links
Kentucky State Penitentiary
Kentucky Department of Corrections
The Kentucky Department of Corrections is a state agency of the Kentucky Justice & Public Safety Cabinet that operates state-owned adult correctional facilities and provides oversight for and sets standards for county jails. They also provide trai ...
KentuckyLake.com
{{Authority control
Capital punishment in Kentucky
Prisons in Kentucky
Buildings and structures in Lyon County, Kentucky
Execution sites in the United States
1889 establishments in Kentucky
Historic district contributing properties in Kentucky