Menard Correctional Center - History To 1935 - Prison Construction

Prison Construction

The first Illinois penitentiary was founded in Alton. Reformer Dorothea Dix visited the site and complained about the filthy conditions there. It was eventually closed and during the Civil War the site was used to house Confederate prisoners. The Alton prison was replaced by a new one in Joliet in 1858. Twenty years later the Southern Illinois Penitentiary was opened, taking prisoners from the southern counties of the state. It was established in 1878 overlooking the Mississippi River. The original buildings were finished by 1889, consisting of the North and South Cell Houses and the Administration Building. A wall enclosed the 11½ acres of the prison grounds. The rear wall runs over the top of a hill that was one of the prison’s rock quarries. Menard also had also a quarry outside the walls. All the original buildings were made by prison labor. The original North and South Cell Houses each contained 400 cells on four tiers. Inmates lived two to a cell. None of these cells had plumbing and buckets were used instead. In 1928, the prison suffered from massive overcrowding. Designed to hold 800 men, the institution had approximately 2,000. Thus, an additional five cages were built on each side of the cell house corridors. These cages, which housed two men each, had a center wall of steel with the top and sides consisting of iron bars. Old buildings within the prison yard were also being used as dormitories, housing prisoners until around 1930 when a new cell house was built to combat the excessive inmate population. The new cell house contained 500 cells, each housing two inmates. All of these cells had plumbing. In 1928, the bathhouse was located in the basement of one of the old buildings. It contained 76 showers. By 1931, the baths were relocated to the basement of the commissary, containing 84 concrete showers. Throughout this time, inmates were given time to bathe once a week during the winter and twice a week in the summer.