Sesquicentennial Minutes 50_ 1925 | Wisconsin State Reformatory

[mournful steel guitar]

- Andrew Janssen: The Wisconsin State Reformatory opened its doors in August of 1898. We took 'em from 16 to 30. They didn't want to put them in a hardened institution like the prison. Burglary was the biggest crime we had all the while I was there. About the only time they could talk was at the dining room tables.
They could talk about 10 minutes. Then on Saturday, they would be in their cells most of the day, except in summer, we had a baseball game in the afternoon. I think about 75% of what	we ate there was raised right on the place. They milked the cows by hand, and when you have 100 cows, right, that's quite a few of 'em to milk.
They used to have a band concert all summer. The bandmaster always managed to whip up some kind of a band, even though he had a hard time finding members.

[mournful harmonica music]