The prison without walls

Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer

A large group gathered at the Hillsboro Public Library last Saturday to hear Rosanna Springston, of the U.S. Forest Service, talk about the Mill Point Prison Camp.

Springston has spent years gathering information on the history of the prison camp and was asked by Hillsboro Library Friends to share her research.

Using personal records from prisoner journals, federal collections and local stories, Springston was able to revive the long-gone prison, which was established in 1938 and closed in 1960.

The prison camp was initially founded to construct Rt. 39 between Mill Point and Richwood, but soon became a large federal facility that could house up to 300 prisoners at a time.

“In the beginning, the officers and prisoners all lived in tents, and before the road was even partially finished, the government realized that this was an excellent site, with possibilities, and they wanted to move it to a more permanent outdoor correctional facility,” Springston said.

The elements were harsh at the camp and Superintendent Mylton Kennedy was quoted as saying, “We’re on an arctic island in West Virginia.”

The facility grew fast, with the inmates constructing a total of 37 buildings that included three dormitories, a sawmill, dining hall, administration building, nine houses for workers, an infirmary, a chapel and a barbershop.

In addition to 300 inmates, the facility housed 40 workers, some of whom had their family with them.

One of the most well-known buildings onsite was the Wilkinson Lodge, an old fashioned log cabin. It was used for functions such as dances, card games and meetings by the workers.

With all the acreage around the prison camp, the prisoners were allowed to grow what they called their “victory gardens.” It began with a small five-acre garden and grew to include 35 acres at the camp, as well as a cornfield in Hillsboro. In addition to growing produce, the prisoners took care of chickens, hogs and cattle.

Springston shared a story about an incident when the prisoners were working in the cornfield in Hillsboro.

“The day just kept getting darker and darker, and eventually the heavens opened and there was a torrential downpour,” she said. “They all just piled into the truck and took off back to Mill Point.”

It seems that in the rush to return to camp, the guard in charge did not do a head count. During the melee, one prisoner was left behind. The guard rushed into the superintendent’s office to confess that he’d left behind a prisoner and that it was all his fault.

“Superintendent Thieman just sat there, very patient, very calm as the guard told his story of woe,” Springston said. “[Thieman said] ‘just before you came in the door, Ed Sheets called from Hillsboro to say there’s a man standing on his front porch and says, please call the prison to come get me because I did not escape.’”

One of the things that made Mill Point prison camp famous was the fact that there were no walls around the facility. Instead, there were small white posts, planted 40 feet apart, around the camp with signs that told prisoners to stay inside the barrier.

There were also signs on the opposite side warning outsiders to stay away.

“It was considered a minimum security prison,” Springston said. “They also did a headcount every two hours to help keep up with everybody, since you could leave relatively easily. Some of the prisoners often said the only door that was locked at the prison was the door to the kitchen.”

While there were precautions, some prisoners did try to escape, with a few possibly succeeding in evading capture.

“Some of the prisoners often said without strong survival skills, the state was fraught with danger and few men attempted it,” Springston said. “They also knew that almost every inmate that escaped was caught, so I suspect there were a few that made it.”

Being a minimum security prison, the inmates either had short sentences or were on the last two years of a longer sentence, so they had an incentive to stick around. Plus, if they were caught trying to flee, five years were added to their sentence, and they were sent to a high security prison to finish their sentence.

Springston shared a recollection by Al Huber, who was a conscientious objector and spent two years at Mill Point. While there, he knew of two men who tried to escape.

“‘Exhibiting true fugitive genius, they made a two-day, straight-line hike to their girlfriends’ houses, where Federal Marshals were waiting with open arms,’” she quoted him.

There was another instance when a moonshiner with just a few months left in his sentence, received a ribbing from a couple buddies who said his girlfriend would not wait for him. He escaped and was surprised by a federal marshal who was sitting in his girlfriend’s front porch swing, waiting for his arrival.

The buddies went to Mill Point to explain what they did and although their friend did not get the full penalty, he did have time added to his sentence nonetheless.

The prison was made up of inmates who were convicted of small crimes and a lot of bootleggers. During war years, many of the inmates were conscientious objectors.

There were also petty criminals who were in for stealing, ration stamp violations, domestic battery, embezzling and arson.

When inmates arrived, they were asked one simple question – Do you think you can make it here or do you think you might run? 

The prisoners were given time to decide, and if they decided they couldn’t handle being at Mill Point, they would be transferred to another prison and their decision was not held against them.

The inmates that did stay were given work details and spent most of their time working in facilities at the camp or in surrounding areas.

Those work details included working as timber cutters or in the sawmill making flooring and other items. They could work in camp maintenance, in the kitchen, laundry facility or on the grounds. They worked the farm and gardens, quarry operations, motor mechanics and on forestry detail.

With the forestry detail, they built telephone lines to fire towers, cleaned brush from fire trails, fought forest fires and replanted trees.

“If you’ve ever been up there and seen the spruce trees in the area, they replaced 22,000 spruce trees,” Springston said.

In later years, thanks to a committee formed by several of the conscientious objectors who fought for rights of the prisoners, men who could not pass a fifth-grade level exam were required to take classes for one hour a day, four days a week.

The goal was to ensure that all the prisoners could read and write by the time they were released.

In the library, a sign stating, “Make Time Serve You,” hung above the door.

“They believed that anyone at the prison should be rehabilitated and so along with education, you would also have a skill as you left,” Springston said.

The prisoners had vocational training and access to a library with 3,500 books, as well as newspapers and magazines.

Between 1938 and 1960, Mill Point housed more than 6,000 prisoners with only 20 escapes.

Springston quoted superintendent Kenneth Thieman:

“Keeping good food on the table, the laundering and repair of clothes, and the maintenance of comfortable quarters and good sanitary facilities are given their due value. Beyond this, the men make the biggest single contribution by their willingness to work and work hard. The high percentage of paid jobs is also a factor, and the opportunity to save towards a ‘stake’ after release is a stabilizer. Above and beyond all this, I believe, however, is the factor of trust which largely commits men to their own custody.”

In her research, Springston said she could only find record of the death of one prisoner, Jack Ward, of Greenville, Tennessee. He was crushed by a tractor while working on the farm. He left behind a young wife and a child he never met.

Among the prisoners were several well-known or famous individuals.

Albert Malts was a member of the Communist party and was one of the Hollywood 10 that refused to name names that would have led to the death of individuals. He was sentenced to a year for contempt of court.

Reverend James Lawson, who died in June 2024, was a conscientious objector of the Korean War. He was 21 or 22 when he served his time and was paroled with the understanding that he would travel to India to serve as a missionary. He worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was quoted to say Lawson “was the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.”

The most well-known name from the prison is probably Howard Fast, a member of the Communist party and conscientious objector.

Fast went on to be a renowned writer with a long list of books, short stories and scripts to his credit, including his most famous book, “Spartacus,” which he wrote during his time at Mill Point.

“Howard Fast wrote a book called ‘Being Red’ and there’s a whole chapter about his time at Mill Point,” Springston said. “While he was there, he was persuaded to teach reading and writing. Unfortunately, it didn’t last very long because it came from the Justice Department that ‘no communists are to do any work in the education department.’”

Fast instead worked on the masonry gang as the only Caucasian member. It took time for the crew to trust him, but in time, they did and taught him what he called “the magic of making concrete.” He helped construct a fountain that sat in the center of the camp.

There were also three naturalists who used their time at the prison camp to document the flora, fauna and wildlife of the area. Worth Randle, Al Simon and Albert Huber were all at the camp around the same time and found a way to “escape” to the cranberry bogs where they did their research.

Randle wrote to West Virginia University professor Maurice Brooks about his findings and Brooks encouraged him to create a plant listing of his findings.

“So basically, the WVU professor enticed him to escape from prison and do these lists,” Springston said.

Of course, the men were soon discovered, but instead of getting punished, they were allowed to continue their research and eventually allowed to lead tours of the area.

In 1958, the Bureau of Prisons made the decision to close the facility due to the decreasing supply of timber in the area and the camp needing major repairs. The declining number of inmates was also a factor.

Many locals tried to fight the closure, and there were plans to turn the prison camp into a recreational site, but those plans were scrapped and so was the camp.

“It took them until 1960 to close,” Springston said. The six districts of the forest service on the Monongahela were allowed to take whatever they wanted. After that, what was left was sold to the highest bidder.

“Then the bulldozers came, and Mill Point became nothing but a memory,” she continued. “Everything was dozed under and/or burnt.”

Today, all that’s left are a few foundations, stairs that lead to nowhere and irises. Yes, the irises that grow there today were planted in the 1940s by superintendent Thieman’s wife.

“I feel like she would probably be happy that they’re still there and spreading because when she first got there – she loved to grow things, specifically flowers – and she was explicitly told flowers will not grow here and she stated, ‘if I cannot grow flowers, I will not stay,’” Springton said.

“So, she planted irises, and they have spread.”

Springston said she welcomes anyone to contact her with information about the Mill Point Prison Camp as she plans to continue her research and gather as much as she can about its history.

She may be contacted at 304-847-2695, ext. 0 or rosanna.springston@usda.gov

Her office address is Gauley Ranger Station, 932 North Fork Cherry Road, Richwood, WV 26261