Maximum security under the ‘Big Top’—A then and now look at Leavenworth Penitentiary

There are bigger buildings in Kansas than the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth. But none of them have walls that extend 40 feet below the ground.

The labor to build such a massive project (nearly 23 acres in all) was initially provided by inmates from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at nearby Fort Leavenworth. The process went on for nearly a decade before USP Leavenworth could accommodate its first 418 prisoners in 1903.

At the time, it was the country’s largest maximum security facility, with cells laid out in a rectangular pattern—unlike the more prevalent “Pennsylvania system” which employed a wagon wheel design.

The Leavenworth penitentiary’s most notable feature, added in 1929, was the large dome in the center, sometimes referred to as the “Big Top.”

Though originally intended to hold around 1,500 prisoners, the population of USP Leavenworth swelled to more than 3,000 during Prohibition. That spurred even more building.

Among those who “did time in Leavenworth” were gangsters like Bugs Moran, Joe Barker and Machine Guy Kelly. Boss Tom Pendergast was incarcerated there, as were Leonard Pelletier, James Earl Ray and Robert Stroud, better known as “the Birdman of Alcatraz.”

In 2005, the penitentiary was downgraded to medium security, and its name changed to the Federal Correctional Institution. Leavenworth.

This postcard, which portrays the imposing structure in an unusually upbeat way is a great example of Tetricolor. Kansas Citian John Teterick developed the process and used it in “chrome” cards that his company published from the 1940s through the 1970s.

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