Daring Prison Escapes | Escape from Leavenworth | 3

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0:52American History Tellers:Imagine it's the morning of April 21st, 1910, in the yard of Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. You're the engineer of a train that delivers construction materials to the prison every Thursday. You lean out of the window to confirm that the flat car loaded with lumber has been uncoupled from the rest of the locomotive. But when you turn back around, put your hands up. You find four prisoners in gray uniforms entering the driver's can. Two of them have their arms around a guard whose eyes are wide with fear. Before you can act, one of the inmates places a gun to your head. Pull the throttle wide open.

1:27American History Tellers:What? I said pull it open. I can't do that. The gate's still closed. You point to the towering steel gate that guards the prison's outer wall. The prisoner just shakes his head and pokes you in the ribs with his revolver. Then I guess we'll see which is stronger, this gate or a few tons of train. Now pull the throttle open. If we rush that gate, we're going to die. Do I look like I'm here to have a discussion? Pull the throttle open. You think you can just hijack a train and bust out of here? The guards are going to start shooting at us from the tower any minute now. The prisoner nods to the guard they've taken hostage.

2:00American History Tellers:They won't shoot as long as one of their own is on board. They won't risk killing him. Now I won't tell you again. Pull that throttle open, or I'll put a bullet between your eyes. Okay, okay. You reluctantly pull the throttle, and the train lurches forward, passing the prison's open inner gate. As it rushes toward the closed outer gate, you instinctively move to stop the engine, but the prisoner nudges you in the back with his revolver. Keep your hand off that throttle.

2:30American History Tellers:you close your eyes and brace yourself as the engine slams into the steel gate with a sound like an explosion the gate rips free sending a shutter down the length of the engine and as you rush on you're horrified by the thought that there's no stopping this runaway train if you want to stay alive with the spark cash plus card from capital one you earn unlimited 2 % cash back on every purchase. And you get big purchasing power, so your business can spend more and earn more. Stephen, Brandon, and Bruno, the business owners of SandCloud, reinvested their 2 % cash back to help build the company's retail presence.

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3:44American History Tellers:From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers, our history, your story.

4:06American History Tellers:In April 1910, a group of prisoners hijacked a supply train and rammed it through the gates of the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. Leavenworth was America's first federal penitentiary, known at the time for its harsh conditions and a rigid military-style discipline. Its early years were marked by several escape attempts, but few were as bold as the attempt to break out by driving a train through the prison steel gates. One of the escapees that day was a 24-year-old prisoner named Frank Grigware. He was serving a life sentence after being convicted of robbing a U.S. mail train.

4:39American History Tellers:Grigware swore he was innocent, and his trial had been marked by shaky evidence and tainted testimony. After he escaped, the search for him and other fugitives became a high-stakes manhunt that drew in gun-toting farmers, the fledgling Bureau of Investigation, and international authorities. This is Episode 3 of our four-part series, Daring Prison Escape, Get Away Train from Lemonworth.

5:06American History Tellers:In 1906, 20-year-old Frank Grigware left his home in Spokane, Washington, to chase his dreams of adventure and riches in the West. Grigware had a fair complexion, an athletic build, and hands marked with scars from his job as a carpenter. He made friends easily, helped along by his tendency to see the best in others. He had dropped out of school in the fourth grade, but what he lacked in education, he made up for in a strong work ethic. He kept his head down, saved his money, and refrained from drinking and smoking. He believed that with hard work and determination, he might find fortune mining for gold and silver.

5:40American History Tellers:He gave his mother a locket with his picture inside as a parting gift. With his friend Jack Golden by his side, he boarded an Eastbound train setting off on a 50-mile journey to the mountains of northern Idaho. But once in Idaho, Grigware and Golden netted only meager profits. By the fall of 1907, they left the area and drifted south in search of new opportunities. They eventually landed in Denver, Colorado, where they fell in with a gang of men that Golden knew through his brothers back in Washington. Grigware soon paid the price for his trusting nature. His new friends arrived in Denver in January 1909, around the same time that a train was robbed just outside the city, and the men often left Grigware and Golden for days at a time, declaring they were scouting for business opportunities.

6:23American History Tellers:If Grigware had any suspicions about the men's involvement in railway holdups that seemed to follow wherever they traveled, he suppressed them out of loyalty to his oldest friend. Before he could distance himself, it was too late. On May 22, 1909, a group of bandits ambushed an eastbound Union Pacific train outside of Omaha, Nebraska. Holding pistols and wearing handkerchief masks over their faces, they demanded that the U.S. post office clerks on board open the door to the mail car. They took off with seven sacks of mail with contents worth an estimated$700. What became known as the mud-cut robbery was an instant news sensation.

7:00American History Tellers:The Union Pacific and the federal government offered$6 ,000 rewards for each suspect, or$30 ,000 in total, over$1 million in today's money. Witnesses on the scene said that it was too dark to make out any of the thieves, but authorities collected circumstantial evidence linking Grigware, Golden, and three of their friends to the crime. Within days, all five were arrested and thrown in jail. But from the start, Grigware firmly denied any wrongdoing.

7:29American History Tellers:Imagine it's October 1909 at the county jail in Obahan, Nebraska. You're a court-appointed defense attorney, and you're meeting with Frank Grigware, one of your clients in the mud-cut robbery trial. A guard leads you through a dim corridor to Grigware's cell. You peer through the bars to see him perched at the end of a narrow iron bed. He stumbles to his feet as you drop your briefcase to the floor. Sit down, Frank. I've got good news. He nods and sits back down on the bed, his pale eyes brightening. Yeah, what is it? The prosecution's made an offer, a chance to cut a deal. If you plead guilty and agree to testify, you'll be looking at a reduced sentence maybe just 10 years.

8:06American History Tellers:No. What do you mean, no? I mean, no, I didn't rob that train. So you said, no, you're not listening. I wasn't there. I didn't even hear about the robbery until the police hauled me in. How am I supposed to be a witness against the others? I don't know anything about it. Frank, listen, the police found an envelope addressed to you at the crime scene. One of those boys stole it from me. He stole all my mail. He was probably hoping I'd be sent some money from home. And a hard work clerk in Utah says he sold a gun to you and two of the others. I've never even been to Utah. Well, I admit the evidence is weak, and I reckon most of their witnesses are just hoping for a piece of the reward money.

8:41American History Tellers:But I also know that the authorities are out for blood. They're sick and tired of all these train robberies, and they're determined to make an example out of you and your friends. I'm warning you, this plea deal is your best shot at avoiding spending the rest of your life behind bars. The light drains from his face. I swear to you I'm innocent. I can't just lie and say and pardon something I wasn't. Look, I'm trying to save your neck here. I won't save myself by lying and damning four others. Well, then, that's your funeral. You pick up your briefcase to leave. He's staring at the wall, hugging his knees to his chest.

9:15American History Tellers:There's no guile in his boyish face. It strikes you that he might really be telling the truth, but you fear that no matter what you say at trial, he's about to go away for life.

9:28American History Tellers:In the fall of 1909, Frank Grigware's court-appointed lawyer urged him to take a plea deal and testify against the other four defendants. But Grigware refused to admit guilt to a crime he swore he did not commit. It was a high-stakes decision. Mail theft was a federal crime punishable by life in prison. On October 25, 1909, the trial for the mud-cut robbery began in a federal District Courthouse in Omaha. The prosecution called more than 80 witnesses to the stand. With many witnesses driven by the prospect of collecting the$30 ,000 reward, much of the testimony was suspect. Several claimed to recognize the defendants as men who robbed the train, even though the robbery had occurred in almost complete darkness and the bandits had been masked.

10:10American History Tellers:And witnesses could not agree on the basic question of whether four or five men had robbed the train. One witness identified Grigware as one of the robbers solely based on his stature and carriage. A postal worker claimed to recognize his voice, despite acknowledging that he had not talked much during the robbery. And a hardware store clerk from Utah testified that he had sold a gun to Grigware and the other defendants before the robbery. But he had no invoice for the sale, and there was no evidence that the gun had been used in the crime. The clerk was later convicted of perjury for false statements made in a separate robbery trial.

10:43American History Tellers:By the time the mud-cut robbery trial was over, one of the lead investigators was convinced that the trial was a botched affair, tainted by perjured testimony. He believed that the cases against Griguer and his friend Jack Golden were especially weak. But it made no difference. On November 11, 1909, the jury took less than 90 minutes to reach a verdict, declaring all five men guilty as charged. A week later, the judge sentenced them to life in prison. The next day, they were cuffed with heavy leg irons and placed on board a prison train for the 160-mile journey south to the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas.

11:18American History Tellers:From the beginning, Leavenworth was designed to be the nation's premier federal penitentiary, a 22-acre city within a city. Modeled after the U.S. Capitol, it had two massive cell houses, each seven stories tall and longer than a football field, linked by a central rotunda capped with a silver dome. A nine-room school, the first in any penitentiary, reflected a faith in rehabilitation. The yard was lined with two long rows of factories, and the facility was enclosed by a towering brick wall. Leavenworth was part of a new federal prison system Congress had recently created to address rising crime and overcrowding in state facilities.

11:54American History Tellers:Other prisons were planned for Atlanta, Georgia and McNeil Island, Washington, but Leavenworth was the nation's first. Construction of such a large facility was a massive undertaking, requiring years of work, vast amounts of materials, and train tracks and a locomotive to transport supplies inside the prison gates. After Congress authorized Leavenworth in 1895, funding was delayed for two years, prompting the Justice Department to rely on prison labor from other facilities for cost savings while they continued construction in the meantime. With hundreds of inmates working on construction amid a constant flow of materials, Leavenworth had a major security weakness that left it vulnerable to escape attempts.

12:32American History Tellers:An unsuccessful mass escape attempt in 1898 ended the career of Leavenworth's first warden. He was replaced by Robert W. McLaurie, a former Chicago police chief who implemented a rigid system of control, undermining the original vision of Leavenworth as a place of reform and rehabilitation. He ordered guards to shoot prisoners who strayed beyond set distances and forced silence during meals and work and punished the possession of unissued items. Severe infractions meant beatings or time in solitary in a darkened cell known as the Hole. Despite McLaurie's firm hand, a second mass escape attempt occurred in November 1901, when 26 inmates working in construction overpowered their guards and escaped on foot.

13:13American History Tellers:All were eventually recaptured. Three main conspirators had their sentences extended to life in prison for killing a guard during the escape. Security was tightened in the immediate aftermath of the breakout. McLaurie had a siren installed that was audible for 10 miles, hired more staff, and planned a new 100-foot central tower equipped with signal lights and machine guns. McClory told a visitor, Leavenworth is hell, and I guess I'm the chief devil. Eight years later, in 1909, Frank Grigware arrived at the gates of McClory's hell. On the rainy afternoon of November 19th, a prison train rolled into Leavenworth, and Grigware was marched inside.

13:50American History Tellers:At intake, he was stripped, searched, deloused, measured, photographed, and fingerprinted. Finally, he was escorted to a narrow and grimy cell. He would no longer be known as Frank Grigware, but by the number that adorned his gray uniform, 6768. In the days that followed, he was forced to adapt to the strict rules and monotonous routines of Leavenworth, described by one prisoner as a giant mausoleum adrift in a great sea of nothingness. He was assigned to work eight hours per day in the prison carpentry shop. He ate meals in a massive dining hall where silence was strictly enforced, and prisoners who failed to finish eating faced punishment.

14:26American History Tellers:A 90-page rulebook outlined a dizzying array of offenses. Failure to comply meant punishment from guards who worked 14-hour days for meager pay. Many took out their frustrations on the prisoners they oversaw. In December 1909, a brutal winter storm deepened the inmates' misery, and several men fell ill from a typhoid outbreak. After Christmas, Griguer grew weak with fever and diarrhea. When he saw treatment, he was accused of faking his illness and sent to isolation in the hole. Stripped of his wool uniform and handed a set of ragged cotton long johns, he was forced to freeze in a dark, cramped cell for two days.

15:02American History Tellers:When he returned to work in the carpentry shop, his fellow prisoners quietly helped him recover. He had endured a rite of passage. Frank not only had survived, but he had earned a measure of acceptance from his fellow inmates. And he emerged from the experience with a newfound resolve to break free, no matter the cost.

15:47Transcription by CastingWords This is my attempt to take the Manifesto back from mass shooters and nihilists and return it to its rightful place with the warriors, the visionaries, the regular folks with just the right amount of crazy. I compare notes with radicals, secessionists, internet trolls out for a laugh, and punk singers screaming their guts out, all trying to turn their anger into the world they want to see. Listen to Manifesto wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Manifesto early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

16:48at all. Right. They were in it. And if you don't listen to them, then I will cut off your tongue, then cut off your head, and then put the tongue in the head hole. Aw, you tried. Listen now exclusively on Audible and Donald the Audible app today, or off with your head! I'm kidding.

17:19American History Tellers:In the spring of 1910, an inmate named Arthur Hewitt carefully studied the rhythms of a supply train that carried construction materials to Leavenworth. Hewitt was a convicted horse thief who had been bent on escape ever since he arrived at Leavenworth a decade earlier. Every Thursday morning, Hewitt watched as a Union Pacific train arrived through the west gate of the prison, carrying lumber to be used in construction. It always followed the same procedure. The west gate was double-gated, and both gates were made of heavy steel bars. The outer gate opened to admit the backing train, then closed while the engine waited in a 40-foot enclosure.

17:54American History Tellers:Once the inner gate opened, the train proceeded slowly into the prison yard. The Thursday morning train was a major weak spot in Leavenworth's security because the track connected to a regular train line that could carry fugitives out to open country. The guards had repeatedly urged Warden Robert McClory to install a remote switch that could derail the engine. McClory agreed on the need, but he insisted that the costs were prohibitive, declaring without additional congressional funding, his hands were tied. The Thursday train was of special interest to prisoners like Arthur Hewitt, who were harboring thoughts of escape.

18:27American History Tellers:Nine years earlier, Hewitt had led the 1901 Leavenworth breakout alongside his friend Thomas Kading, who had belonged to the same horse theft ring before their imprisonment. They were joined by Bob Clark, a stocky, wild-eyed inmate missing a tooth and part of a finger, described by McLory as one of the most cold-blooded and cold-hearted criminals he'd ever known. Hewitt, Kading, and Clark were serving life sentences for engineering the 1901 escape. The intervening years had made them no less defiant, and all three spent months at a time in solitary in the hole. Back in 1901, they had fled Leavenworth on foot.

19:01American History Tellers:Now Hewitt realized that the best way to break out of the prison was to hijack the Thursday morning train and drive it through the West Gate. The only problem was how to seize control of the train without weapons. But in late March 1910, an idea occurred to Hewitt while he was sharing a cell with Theodore Murdoch, who was well known among the inmates for his skill as a craftsman. Murdoch was serving time for counterfeiting money, and he spent his days in the Leavenworth carpentry shop building prison furniture. Recognizing his bunkmate's unique set of skills, Hewitt asked Murdoch if he could make three or four fake guns out of wood that looked real enough to fool the guards.

19:37American History Tellers:Murdoch, Hewitt, and Hewitt's longtime accomplices, Caning and Clark, would board the engine once it rolled into the yard, then hold the engineer at gunpoint to force him to drive through the closed steel gate. Murdoch agreed to carve the guns in secret during his daily shift in the carpentry shop. Hewitt worked in the tailor shop, where he planned to steal shoe polish to paint the guns. Hewitt informed Clark of the plan and got a message to Cady, who had been in the hole since February for refusing to work. But as Murdoch got started on the prop guns, he realized that the real challenge would be keeping the escape plot secret from the guards and the other inmates.

20:14American History Tellers:Imagine it's early April 1910, and you're in the carpentry shop of Leavenworth Penitentiary, carefully carving a block of wood under the table. You have one eye trained on the guards supervising you. He turns his back as another guard steps into the shop to talk with him. With the guards distracted, an inmate sitting beside you, a man named Grigware, leans toward you. Hey, what are you doing? You give him a sideways glare. None of your business. Come on, I know you've been working on something. What is it? Nothing you need to know about. In a sudden movement, the inmate ducks down to steal a glance under the table.

20:47American History Tellers:Is that what I think it is? No, it is not. It looks to me like you're carving that block of wood into the shape of a revolver. You're seeing things, kid. Yeah, well, I know a gun when I see one, even if it's fake. But whatever you're planning, I want in. You pause your work to consider this. You know that you would get more done if you didn't have to constantly keep an eye on the guards. But you also know that the more people that are involved, the more likely that word will get out. Want to get involved? Why? So you can flap your gums to the next guy who offers you a cigarette? It's best you pretend you never saw a thing.

21:19But I can help.

21:20American History Tellers:I can be your lookout. How do I know you're not a rat? You can trust me. I won't say a word. You know they offered me a plea deal to testify against my friends, right? I wouldn't do it. Oh yeah, the big Omaha train robbery. Aren't you always saying that you're innocent? I doubt you have the guts. Grigware's fist tightens around the chisel in his hand. No, I'm not afraid. This is my only way out. No judge is going to free me, and I'll be damned before I spend the rest of my life in prison for a crime I didn't commit. Do you have any idea what happens once that siren goes off? Those guards will open fire without even blinking.

21:50American History Tellers:I tell you, I'd rather die trying to get out than run away in this place. You study him. There's steel in his eyes you didn't notice before. All right, I'll talk to the others about it, see what they think. But right now, shut up before the guards catch us. Right on cue, the guard starts walking toward your workbench. You hide the fake revolver and return to your assigned task. Griguer fidgets with the chisel in his hand, his nervous energy palpable. You hope you're not making a mistake by bringing him in. For this plan to work, it's going to take loyalty, luck, and sheer nerve.

22:28American History Tellers:In the carpentry shop, Frank Griguer noticed that his fellow inmate Theodore Murdoch was secretly carving a block of wood into the shape of a gun. Although Murdoch and Arthur Hewitt were wary of involving more men, they decided they could trust Grigware as someone who had nothing to lose, since he too was serving a life sentence. Another inmate in the carpentry shop, John Gideon, became the sixth and final member of the escape crew. Grigware and Gideon served as lookouts, allowing Murdoch to work without constantly watching for the guards. On April 16, 1910, Hewitt's friend Thomas Kating was released from the hole after promising to return to work in the tailor shop and obey the rules.