Walking on the grass had been a punishable offense. Before Superintendent Rhay formally recognized the area as “People’s Park,” the inmates appropriated it and called it “The People’s Lawn.”
Daily Archives: January 23, 2015
THE FISH POND
In the middle of People’s Park was a fish pond stocked with fish. There were also fire barrels in the park where inmates would warm their hands on a cold night, and sometimes fry a fish. As one inmate said, “It was like you’re on the streets, and you weren’t.”
The newly constructed pond is shown in the picture below. Water and fish came later.
LIFERS’ PARK
The Lifers were the first organization at the penitentiary to be given their own turf. A grassy area between Seven Wing and Eight Wing was first called “Lifer’s Acre.” It soon became known as Lifers’ Park. A former clothing room at the north end of the park became their club area. Inmates, and only the inmates, had keys to the gate into Lifers’ Park and to the door of their club area. Officers had to request that the gate or door be open. In the pictures below, Eight Wing is on the left; Seven Wing is on the right.
Lifers’ Park
Lifers’ Park in winter
Inmates hanging out in Lifers’ Park
SUPERINTENDENT NICOLAS GENAKOS
Nicholas Genakos
Nicholas Genakos, or “Nick the Greek” as the correctional officers called him, has the distinction of being the shortest serving superintendent of WSP in its more than 100 year history. He was superintendent for all of six weeks.
Prior to taking over from Douglas Vinzant as superintendent in July 1978, Genakos had been Vinzant’s associate superintendent for custody. The two men knew each other from their days in Massachusetts, when Vinzant was warden of Walpole prison and Genakos was his deputy. After a bomb exploded in the penitentiary’s central control room in August 1978, Vinzant was fired as Director of Prisons and Genakos was asked to resign as WSP superintendent.
SUPERINTENDENT JIM SPALDING
Jim Spalding
James (Jim) Spalding was born in Montana, the eldest son of the Captain of the Guards at Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge. As a young man he came to Washington State, hoping to become a state trooper. When he discovered there was a one year residency requirement to apply for the job, he went to work at the penitentiary as a correctional officer.
Spalding quickly rose through the ranks. Every time he took a civil service exam for promotion – for sergeant, lieutenant, and captain – he was ranked number one on the state register. Spalding left the penitentiary in 1974 to become an associate superintendent at the Monroe Reformatory, the other old prison in Washington.
In August, 1978, a few weeks shy of his 38th birthday, Spalding was named superintendent of the Washington State Penitentiary. He inherited a broken and dysfunctional prison. Not only were the inmates out of control, so too were many of the correctional officers. Many officers did little or nothing; some ran in rat packs, harassing inmates, trashing their cells, and beating them.
Spalding was penitentiary superintendent until July 1981 when he became Deputy Director of the Division of Prisons for the newly created Washington State Department of Corrections. His years as superintendent coincided with some of the most difficult times at the penitentiary.
Jim Spalding died in September 2014.