# Georgia Convict Camps



## Artfuldodger (Jun 3, 2014)

I used to work with a guy whose dad was a guard for a   Prison Camp near Fargo or Homerville. Prison camps were set up so that prisoners could cut road right-of-ways without having to return to a prison. I'm assuming his dad did this in the thirties by his age. At one time prisoners were leased to private companies to work in Georgia but was stopped because of abuse.
Here is some reading I found on the subject;

By 1903, Moore had given up farm labor and was working as a convict guard for the the Baxter & Company’s convict camp at Fargo, GA. The G. S. Baxter & Company sawmill at Fargo was the largest in Clinch County, and the State Prison System of Georgia had leased more than 1,000 convicts to the firm under the convict lease system.  It was at the Fargo Convict Camp where James Thomas Biggles, of Rays Mill, served his sentence for the murder of Madison Pearson.

The G. S. Baxter & Company sawmill was located at Fargo on the route of the Georgia, Southern, and Florida Railroad. The GS&F opened about 1900 and ran from Macon via Valdosta to Jacksonville, FL.
https://raycityhistory.wordpress.com/tag/georgia-southern-and-florida-railroad/

In the mid-1940s the national media focused again on the harsh conditions of Georgia's chain gangs, which led to a movement to abolish them. Governor Ellis Arnall's investigation of the prison system ultimately resulted in a prison reform act, which modernized the Georgia prison system and sent chain gangs the way of convict leasing. Convict labor in Georgia no longer endangers the health of prisoners. However, Georgia's convicts are still expected to work on various projects, including roadside beautification.
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/convict-lease-system


On July 12 1947, an article was published in the New York Times under the headline “Five Convicts Slain in Break in Georgia.” It opened with the following sentence:

“Five Negro convicts were shot to death and eight others were wounded, two critically, in an escape attempt at a state highway work camp today, Warden H. G. Worthy said.”
The words are unremarkable on their face. In fact, many prisoners tried to escape from convict camps over the years. Camps were brutal and terrible places for prisoners. However the initial account of what happened at the Anguilla Prison Camp (near Brunswick, Georgia) on July 11, 1947 turned out to be completely fabricated. Warden H. G. Worthy provided his initial version of events which was published in the Times.
http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2012/12/23/the-anguilla-prison-camp-massacre/


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## Artfuldodger (Jun 3, 2014)

Soon after the end of World War Two, Georgia built a convict camp, as it was then called, on the Saint George Highway just south of Folkston. Barracks, dining rooms, and conference rooms were built of wood and local employees were hired to run the camp. The Prison Warden was W. H.  McHan brought in from another state prison camp.
            McHan was an outgoing man, making friends in Folkston's business community with ease. He regularly invited the Folkston Lions Club to meet in the prison dining room, with the prison furnishing the meal. The Lions looked forward in glee to these frequent events, savoring some of the juiciest steaks that could be bought.
            McHan had his inmates work for the county and city governments, cleaning the towns, erecting lighting poles on the school football field, and generally making the prison invaluable to the community. Likewise, when McHan would need a favor, the business and government leaders granted his request without a murmur.
            McHan, an accomplished leader, soon became needed to take charge of Georgia's toughest prison camp, at Buford. That prison housed some of Georgia's most troublesome prisoners. McHan needed only a few months there to bring the inmates under control, drawing praise from state officials.
            The convict camp at Folkston soon was phased out. It was located where today the Charlton County Maintenance Shops are located. The county had made the land available to the state without cost to entice the prison camp into the county. When it closed, the county took back over the facility, together with the improvements that had been erected there.
            But, when the camp closed, most employees moved elsewhere with the prison system. Some, however, stayed in the Folkston area and blended into the community.
http://www.glynngen.com/~thecrypt/pinebarrens/

This is from a 1929 Homerville newspaper account of a Convict Camp guard & prisoner holding up a grocery store in Valdosta,
the article is at the top right:
http://cch.stparchive.com/Archive/CCH/CCH05241929P01.php


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## OldBat (Jun 4, 2014)

Late 60s early seventies IIRC they put up a sign on the fence at the Cobb county prison farm. "Ain't no gang like a chain gang". Had to take it down because it became a tourist attraction and they did not want the public stopping to take pictures.


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## The Longhunter (Jun 4, 2014)

There is a book, _I am a Fugitive From a Georgia Chain Gang_, 1932, by Robert Elliot Burns that describes the author's experience on a Georgia chain gang.  

It was popular enough to be made into a movie, which comes on late night T.V. from time to time.  _Cool Hand Luke_ is loosely based on the movie.

The book is credited with being the impetus behind Ellis Arnall's reforms.  Burns was recaptured, and Gov. Ellis Arnall represented him before the parole board, which commuted Burns sentence to time served.  (Georgia governor's don't have the authority to grant pardons.)

The Georgia prison system does not come out looking good in the book.

The story is one of those "fact is stranger than fiction."   Burns was sentenced to 10 years for stealing $5.80.  He escaped, went to Chicago, became a successful business man, and was living the good life.  He was quite prominent in Chicago society when his jealous wife turned him in to Georgia authorities. 

The Georgia prison authorities were embarrassed that he had escaped in the first place, and more embarrassed that he had done better in life than they had, so they set out to make an example of him.  He escaped again, and then wrote his book from hiding.

It's fascinating reading, and a first and account of how the system worked.


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## ghadarits (Jun 4, 2014)

My Grand Parents had German prisoners of war working at their wood mill because all the men of fighting age were off fighting or getting ready to fight. 

With my Granddad being a recent immigrant from Hungry who left to escape Hitlers advance I'm told he was pretty hard on the prisoners he had working at the mill.

The mill was the Middle Georgia Lumber Company in Macon GA. I wish I could have meet him and gotten to know him. All the stories I hear of him tell me he was a great man.


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## hummdaddy (Jun 4, 2014)

ghadarits said:


> My Grand Parents had German prisoners of war working at their wood mill because all the men of fighting age were off fighting or getting ready to fight.
> 
> With my Granddad being a recent immigrant from Hungry who left to escape Hitlers advance I'm told he was pretty hard on the prisoners he had working at the mill.
> 
> The mill was the Middle Georgia Lumber Company in Macon GA. I wish I could have meet him and gotten to know him. All the stories I hear of him tell me he was a great man.



not to bad on overhead when you have slave labor


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## Artfuldodger (Jun 4, 2014)

I've heard of farmers around Augusta using military prisoners. I also heard that Italian POW's could use the main base exchange at Ft. Gordon but Black US soldiers couldn't. 
I found this:

As in World War I, installation camps had satellite camps of from 250 to 750 men that supplied workers for labor-poor southern industry and agriculture, and prisoners received half-rations and experienced activity restrictions if they refused to work. At one time before the War Department streamlined the camp system, Camp Gordon had satellite camps as far away as North Carolina and Florida. Workers harvested cotton, tomato, and peanut crops, and they worked in numerous industries, including pulpwood and lumber. By mid-1944 the shirts emblazoned with the large letters "PW" were a common sight in Georgia. Some German and Italian POWs befriended soldiers and farmers, and they were invited into Americans' homes for meals and entertainment.

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/foreign-prisoners-war


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## Artfuldodger (Jun 4, 2014)

My dad used to get prisoners from the local jail to paint and clean up the American Legion Post & grounds. He said they enjoyed getting away from the jail. My Dad would always feed them lunch.


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## ghadarits (Jun 4, 2014)

*I wouldnt call it slave labor*



hummdaddy said:


> not to bad on overhead when you have slave labor



I wouldn't consider it slave labor in light of what the Germans were doing to their prisoners. These Germans were worked very hard but had a clean place to sleep and all of their meals prepared for them by my grandmother. Not to mention the learning curve of teaching them how not to get killed by the 5ft saw blades and everything else. Neither my grandfather or any of his 3 brothers had all of their fingers.


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## ox rider (Jun 5, 2014)

Good post...very interesting.  

It is sometimes hard to believe how much things have changed in a comparatively short period of history.  Few people today have any idea how daily life was even in the 40s.  There are so many people working hard to change history by only teaching their versions of events.  It is important for all of us to read things that were written at the time and portray life as it really was.  Keep up the good work…And read those articles quickly before they are banned by political correctness.


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## westcobbdog (Jun 5, 2014)

Interesting post. The convict wagon Cobb County keeps on display on county farm road would not be fun to be riding in.


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## mickbear (Jun 5, 2014)

ghadarits said:


> My Grand Parents had German prisoners of war working at their wood mill because all the men of fighting age were off fighting or getting ready to fight.
> 
> With my Granddad being a recent immigrant from Hungry who left to escape Hitlers advance I'm told he was pretty hard on the prisoners he had working at the mill.
> 
> The mill was the Middle Georgia Lumber Company in Macon GA. I wish I could have meet him and gotten to know him. All the stories I hear of him tell me he was a great man.


I think they had them working for the GA Experiment stations as well.


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## JKnieper (Jun 5, 2014)

I know there were Germans picking cotton in Alabama during WWII.  The old timers who were kids back then would tell me that the POWs all looked 7 feet tall and menacing to them.  They were also not allowed to go outdoors when they were up near the house.


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## king killer delete (Jun 6, 2014)

hummdaddy said:


> not to bad on overhead when you have slave labor



No sir they were paid. All the slave labor was done by the Axis powers


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## JohnK (Jun 7, 2014)

I remember the guys with leg chains out on the roads working. Looked like a hot job and they wore striped uniforms. I'm sure that would be an incentive to keep out of jail.


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## T-N-T (Jun 8, 2014)

ox rider said:


> Good post...very interesting.
> 
> It is sometimes hard to believe how much things have changed in a comparatively short period of history.  Few people today have any idea how daily life was even in the 40s.  There are so many people working hard to change history by only teaching their versions of events.  It is important for all of us to read things that were written at the time and portray life as it really was.  Keep up the good work…And read those articles quickly before they are banned by political correctness.



So very true.  Professors and teachers alike dont teach what they dont like.  I saw it first hand in high school.  Then hear of it from time to time from others who where educated in different places then I was.  those teachers who bend history should be fired. 

Thanks for posting up Dodger,  as always,  Very Interesting and though provoking.


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## Artfuldodger (Jun 8, 2014)

JohnK said:


> I remember the guys with leg chains out on the roads working. Looked like a hot job and they wore striped uniforms. I'm sure that would be an incentive to keep out of jail.



For some reason the car washing scene from "Cool Hand Luke" popped in my head.


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## Throwback (Jun 13, 2014)

hummdaddy said:


> not to bad on overhead when you have slave labor





jealous your folks didn't make out on that deal too, huh?

T


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## littlerunner (Jun 16, 2014)

I will post a picture in the next few days of a "Chain Gang" believed to be taken in the 1920's. My Wife’s Great Grandfather was a Warden in Colquitt County and is in the picture. Ironically, He was later murdered by a "Parolee".  Standby, you guys will Love this one!


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## Nicodemus (Jun 16, 2014)

They should bring the chain gang back.


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## Artfuldodger (Jun 17, 2014)

Nicodemus said:


> They should bring the chain gang back.



That wouldn't be politically correct. Never mind the atrocities they commited, to place them in the hot sun where many of us have worked all day, would be inhumane.
Considering how people had to live outside of convict camps why should prisoners have it so easy even by today's standards.


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## Artfuldodger (Jun 17, 2014)

Related  to convict camps in lifestyle and sorta like being in prison was turpentine camps, coal mine villages, cotton mill villages, and even share croppers. 
Most owed their souls to the company store and had to tow the line.

Turpentine quarters, or company housing for the largely African American
workforce, lasted in South Georgia through the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Lloyd
Powell camp outside Homerville, one of the last of its kind, is featured in the video
documentary Spirits of the Pines (1978). The quality of housing varied from camp to
camp; throughout much of the twentieth century, however, many homes were little more
than ramshackle shanties.

http://ww2.valdosta.edu/turpentine/pdf files/the camp.pdf


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## Artfuldodger (Jun 17, 2014)

A hoe cake sizzles in the pan alongside a measured slab of white bacon. The woman cracks two eggs, compliments of a squad of 
anemic hens already scratching in the dust beneath the raised house. The man eats quickly. He hears the shouted commands of the 
driver of the two mules as the wagon rolls heavily down the camp street picking up the hands on the run. The woman hurriedly stuffs 
cornbread, a sweet potato, and a mason jar of pot licker from last evening’s greens into a cloth lunch sack. With brief words of 
affection she watches as her man, still shedding the webs of sleep, lunges into the morning dark toward the sound of snorting mules, 
creaking wagon, and aborted phrases of acknowledgment.

An old man, thirty years in “turpentine,” lets roll a resonant laugh. Day breaks as the mules pull the dippers toward the first man’s drift. 
The woodsrider is “studyin’  ” on his six crops— 60,000 boxes on 60,000 trees.

Surely such a scene was repeated innumerable times across the great belt of pine forest from North Carolina to Texas through the 
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But it was on the coastal plains of Georgia, Florida, and the other Gulf states that the 
turpentine industry with its attendant methods of labor control lasted the longest. There also it attained the form which assured its 
place in the dismal history of labor exploitation.

http://thewhitehouseboysonline.com/ARTICLE-TURPENTINE-CAMP.html


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## Artfuldodger (Jun 17, 2014)

Not only was the turpentine industry hard on the "camp" workers. Many farmers worked trees and worked just as hard. I remember kids staying out of school when it was time to dip.

http://ww2.valdosta.edu/turpentine/Informants.htm


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## The Longhunter (Jun 17, 2014)

Artfuldodger said:


> Related  to convict camps in lifestyle and sorta like being in prison was turpentine camps, coal mine villages, cotton mill villages, and even share croppers.
> Most owed their souls to the company store and had to tow the line.
> 
> Turpentine quarters, or company housing for the largely African American
> ...





Artfuldodger said:


> Not only was the turpentine industry hard on the "camp" workers. Many farmers worked trees and worked just as hard. I remember kids staying out of school when it was time to dip.
> 
> http://ww2.valdosta.edu/turpentine/Informants.htm




Not Georgia turpentine camps, but an accurate and detailed description of these camps is in several books by Zora Neale Hurston, particularly, _Their Eyes Were Watching God_.

There were some big turpentine camps south of Bradenton Fl, which at the time was basically the northern edge of the Everglades.  My father grew up there, and he describe them as totally lawless -- the law was actually afraid to go there.


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## Artfuldodger (Jun 17, 2014)

Interesting pictures of Tifton cotton mill workers:

http://www.sevensteeples.com/youngfamily3.html


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## Lilly001 (Jun 17, 2014)

Nicodemus said:


> They should bring the chain gang back.



Down here in the land of the rodent some of the local Sheriffs do have work crews made up of inmates. The county I live in even has an inmate farm. They cut the cost of feeding the inmates almost in half and by our county's estimate save the tax payer a couple million a year in work they do( cleaning drainage ditches and general road and park clean up).
Just no chains. They do wear the hamburglar suits though.


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## Artfuldodger (Jun 17, 2014)

Many of the turpentine camps leased prisoners from the state as workers.  I guess the abuse was what lead to the end of the convict work lease program.

Do prisons in Georgia still have farms such as the state prison farm near Milledgeville had?

1899-1937
Was located on the Macon Road (Hwy 22). 4,000 acres of land was purchased from Captain T.F. Newell in 1898.  Was created in 1899 for aged, infirm and juvenile convicts.  In 1901 the youngest prisoner was 9 year old Arthur Steele from Fulton County. The State Reformatory for boys was established in 1906 and is still in operation on Hwy. 22 as Bill Ireland Youth Development Center.  Men and Women were imprisoned here. Captain Kichen A. Foster was the first superintendant of the prison farm when it opened in May 1899. Encompassing about 4,000 acres, 1,000 of those acres were planted in cotton the first year which became profitable.  Bill Miner, Leo Frank and Mrs. Elizabeth Nobles were among the famous prisoners here. 

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gabaldw2/pen.html


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## Artfuldodger (Jun 17, 2014)

There was some type of prison farm in Atlanta. It opened as an experimental part of the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta. It was called Honor Farm #2. Situated on 1,248 acres in DeKalb County, Honor Farm No. 2, so named to distinguish it from the smaller honor farm just outside the prison’s wall, opened for business in 1920.
The farm was originally regarded as an experiment — a minimum security facility where trustworthy inmates, hand-picked by the warden, tended crops and livestock to feed themselves and their fellows a few miles up the road at the main prison. To allay the concerns of area farmers, none of the farm’s harvest could be sold to the public.

http://www.atlantaprisonfarm.com/20...arm-began-as-an-experiment-in-rehabilitation/

The whole, whole south Atlanta property might have once been 10 times bigger, suggested Scott Petersen on a clear Sunday morning, as he started a tour of the place for 20 or so people. Petersen told everyone to tell more friends about the farm; he’s an activist who’s been working for more than a decade to get the place turned into a park.

It could be the biggest in Atlanta — by contrast, Grant Park is 131.5 acres.

Around the turn of the 20th century, the Atlanta Prison Farm, aka the United States Government Honor Farm, opened up to federal inmates, some of whom were Native Americans convicted of federal crimes such as practicing native religion or being caught off the reservation.

http://greencracker.net/?p=807


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## Oldstick (Jul 2, 2014)

JKnieper said:


> I know there were Germans picking cotton in Alabama during WWII.  The old timers who were kids back then would tell me that the POWs all looked 7 feet tall and menacing to them.  They were also not allowed to go outdoors when they were up near the house.



Pretty sure there was a German POW camp near Macon.  There was a co-worker years ago that had an older relative who was the translator at one camp.  Heard some pretty interesting second hand stories.  For the most part they were reasonably well behaved since I assume they knew the truth and were secretly glad to be out of it.

They apparently were always messing around with the translator, hurling insults in some obscure slang dialects to see if he knew it.  I think he was a very large man and he snatched one up by the collar one day and returned the vulgarity using the same slang.  That got everybody rolling on the floor, including all the guards.


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## Jeff Raines (Jul 2, 2014)

My dad worked for Cobb County diesel division,right across the road from the prison.
There were always trustees around to sweep up and clean the toilets.
I can remember back in the 70's there used to be a hog lot on one side of county farm lake,then it was moved down to olley creek where the dept. of public safety now is.
The trustees were allowed to use bolt guns to slaughter the hogs.
Dad used to take me to the "camp" for free haircuts


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## TimBray (Jul 14, 2014)

Had a great-uncle that was a guard at the prison camp beside Stone Mountain many, many years ago. My Mom pointed it out to me once when I was young.


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## GunnSmokeer (Jul 14, 2014)

*Railroad in N. Georgia*

The old 1880s railroad line from Marietta, GA through Blue Ridge GA (and on to near Knoxville, TN) was largely built through contract labor with the State and local Sheriffs who would supply prisoners to do the work.
They did not get very good medical care or treatment, although perhaps the same could be said for any person of the same economic class at that place and time in our history. Let's just say by today's standards they weren't treated well.  
And eventually, Georgia banned the use of prison labor by private businesses, except for specially approved prison factories to make goods to be sold and put into the free market.

Those convicts did get the job done in good time, though. Especially considering how much work was done by hand, digging those railroad beds into the rugged mountain terrain up there, hugging the hills and having to make all those curves in the track...


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## Sargent (Jul 15, 2014)

I remember the old "Pig Farm" in Alpharetta.  For the first 9 years of my life, we lived about 3 miles from there.  

We were awakened by a knock on the door late one night by a LEO. An inmate had walked off his duty and was at large.  It was minimum security and the officer told my dad he didn't think there was any danger. 

When we'd drive by and see the prisoners working the pigs, my dad would "warn" me about being bad... I'd have to work with the pigs.




My old business partner's uncle ran a prison camp somewhere in S. Georgia.   He would actually go stay with his uncle for a few weeks during the summer.  

Somehow, his uncle received a handful of tickets to the Braves game (late 60s/early 70s).  He took my business partner, along with 3 of the trustees that he felt wouldn't run.  He said that one of them was so loyal, he didn't want to leave after he was paroled.  So, the uncle hired him on as an employee.


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## mr meriwether (Nov 13, 2014)

I know a sheriff in a small town in ....... We picked up 4 inmates and they moved  my grandmothers house in a day.We paid them $10.00 an hour .This goes into an account ,that is given to them upon their release.Hopefully that is the case.


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## KyDawg (Nov 14, 2014)

littlerunner said:


> I will post a picture in the next few days of a "Chain Gang" believed to be taken in the 1920's. My Wife’s Great Grandfather was a Warden in Colquitt County and is in the picture. Ironically, He was later murdered by a "Parolee".  Standby, you guys will Love this one!



I was living in Colquitt County when Warden Rowland and his wife were killed by a parolee back in the 50's. Wonder if that is the same one you are talking about.


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## The Longhunter (Nov 14, 2014)

Artfuldodger said:


> Do prisons in Georgia still have farms such as the state prison farm near Milledgeville had?
> 
> [/url]



There is a massive farming operation at Reidsville including cattle.  Has a cannery and abbatoir, and supplies food to the entire prison system.


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## The Longhunter (Nov 14, 2014)

When I was in high school in the late 1960's there was a prison camp at Stone Mountain park, and about half the maintenance work was done by prisoners.  Being that camp was considered "good time" because the prisoners pretty much had the run of the park, and with not much effort they could keep up their "social" obligations.

They did a lot of the dump truck driving, which was really funny (to me) because most of them didn't have drivers licenses - there was some obscure provision of the law that exempted them.

I worked with one as a helper, he was a  master electrician, had worked for my father in commercial construction.  Atlanta was a whole lot smaller, and all the commercial supply houses were downtown.  The "bosses" were going to trust a state truck to me, so it wasn't unusual to send a trusty, white striped uniform and all, downtown to a supply house for parts.  

Here's what I found really interesting based on the horror stories you hear.  The prison camps lunches were all fresh vegetables, cooked by some "home boys" that really knew how to cook.  It was a real treat for us "private citizens" to get an invite to eat at the prison mess.  Corn bread or biscuits, and some really good vegetables.

Clarke County had a prison farm through about the late 70's, and then the airport took it over.  They produced enough food to feed the prison camp (state facility) and adjacent county jail.  Again working the farm was considered good duty, beat whacking weeds with a "manually operated weedwhacker."


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## Milkman (Feb 4, 2018)

Bump for a great thread


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## JustUs4All (Feb 5, 2018)

When nearing retirement, I moved back to my home town.  I went to the court house to move my voter registration.  It wasn't there so I asked for directions.  The lady asked if I knew where the convict camp was.  I said that I did.  She said they are located there, "I thought you looked old enough to remember where that was."


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## John Cooper (Feb 5, 2018)

Up here in Dade county they had alot of coal mines, most were run with convict labor. Think they started these mines back before the War between the States. 

Cole City was one of the camps.


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