On Monday, September 20, 1954, a ferocious windstorm buffeted Jefferson City and surrounding towns. Hurricane-force winds downed power lines and trees. Torrential rains caused flooding. Two days later, while residents were still surveying the damage and beginning to clean up the debris, another cataclysmic storm struck.

It was Wednesday evening, September 22, around six-thirty, when two inmates feigned illness to attract the attention of two guards. When the guards entered the hall to investigate, they were overpowered and their keys were stolen. One of the guards, Jefferson Gentry, was beaten severely. The two convicts then bolted out of their cell and ran along the cellblock, releasing others as they went. Soon a large group of inmates was running loose, racing across the compound and emptying other cellblocks along their path. One group of inmates entered the dining hall, smashing windows and chairs. In the prison shops, anything flammable was set afire.

Local reporter gets scoop

Ms. Jeri East, the UPI reporter who had covered the Heady and Hall execution, was sitting in the Steamboat Lounge in the old Missouri Hotel. East, one of her UPI bosses from Kansas City, and the manager of new radio station KLIK were engaged in conversation. They were waiting for East's fiancée, Dr. Larry Giffen, to join them for dinner. Suddenly, she was told she had an important phone call. It was her friend, Red Baker, who worked for the Jefferson City newspaper.

"Jeri," he told her quietly, "you aren't going to believe me, but there is a riot at the prison." East laughed and told him to stop joking. "It's no joke." he said. "step outside and see for yourself."

East ran to High Street and looked toward the penitentiary. Sure enough, she could see the sky lit up from the burning prison buildings. Black smoke rose high in the air. Even though she was dressed for dinner and not prepared to cover a riot, she hurried to the prison and met Governor Phil Donnelly in front of the Administration Building. He told her no reporters would be allowed inside. It was too dangerous, he said.

Highway patrol gets the call

At about the same time the trio had been relaxing in the lounge, Missouri Highway Patrolman Walter Wilson had been eating dinner in his patrol car. He listened as an urgent message came over his radio, "Proceed to Jefferson City at once, prison riot in progress!" Obeying the riot plan procedures, he immediately headed toward Jefferson City. Since Wilson was stationed in St. Joseph. he would have a harrowing two hundred mile drive. Simultaneously, other highway patrolmen from all over the state turned their cars toward the capital city as well. Truckers on the highways pulled over so the troopers would have a clear path. In towns along the way, local police manned intersections to keep traffic clear.

Wilson later wrote about his experiences. "As I neared the Capitol, Jefferson City looked as if the whole town were burning. I joined forces with about one hundred other troopers, helping rescue squads and keeping residents of the capitol [sic] city away from the gates and walls of the prison. Firemen were attempting to fight the blazes from outside the walls. An occasional shot could be heard, and explosions of paint cans sounded like grenades. Shouts of men in pain and fear were heard, the deep throated wail of the prison siren was sounding." Terrified residents of Jefferson City milled around below, in windows and on rooftops, and began shooting over the walls.

By midnight more highway patrol troopers, Kansas City and St. Louis police, national guardsmen and local police had surrounded the prison. Inside, several hundred convicts were running, shouting and throwing bricks and chunks of concrete at the deputy warden's office. Four buildings were fully ablaze, and more fires were being started. Soon, nearly 2,500 rioters were on the loose and churning inside the walls. In this chaotic nightmare of activity, one inmate in solitary confinement was tortured and murdered by other prisoners, presumably for turning state's evidence against a St. Louis robber gang.

Citizens arm themselves

At the director's residence across the street from the penitentiary, young Tommy Whitecotton, son of Director Whitecotton, was terrified. Gobs of flaming tar were floating over the walls of the penitentiary and setting little fires on roofs across the street, including his own. Tommy and the Whitecottons' inmate houseboy, Houston, ran back and forth with buckets of water trying to extinguish the flames. Houston promised Tommy that he would protect him if any of the prisoners escaped.

Ralph Prenger, a resident of Jefferson City, and some of his neighbors formed a vigilante squad which patrolled the woods around the prison in case the inmates escaped. No one in town was certain if there had been any escapees. The entire city had turned into an armed camp.

Chaos inside and out

Ms. East, a tenacious reporter, had managed by now to enter the prison along with other members of the press. It was mass confusion inside and out, as injured inmates were carried to offices, away from further danger.

Three stretchers leaned against a wall, the bloody outlines of the bodies that had lain in them clearly visible. East stepped outside once for fresh air and found it almost as chaotic outside the prison as in.

Nervous, excited citizens were milling about the walls. Many small aircraft circled overhead, the pilots trying to give their passengers a good look down at the burning prison.

Guard threatened with death

A death row guard, Clarence Dietzel, was slashed with a knife and razor and forced to lie on a fourth floor catwalk with his legs dangling over the edge. His eyeglasses were smashed and an eye injured. Surrounded by prisoners who threatened to throw him down to the cement floor three tiers below, he began having severe chest pains. He begged the convicts to "do what they wished, quickly."

Convicts rampage through the night

Trooper Wilson and the other highway patrolmen continued their vigil throughout the night, as the law enforcement groups tried to prevent a mass breakout: "As waves of rioters stormed the deputy warden's office, armed troopers on the roof were finally forced to open fire with machine guns and riot guns to force the desperate prisoners to flee the prison yard. Several convicts were injured by gun fire," Wilson later wrote. "Efforts to battle the fires were futile because of the melee in the enclosure. Walls had crashed to the ground to add to the confusion."

Officials regain control

Confronted with that mighty show of firepower, the inmates were finally forced back and most scattered to take cover wherever they could. Officers finally gained control, flushing out small groups of men and subduing the group of ringleaders. Another three hundred prisoners were still barricaded in B and C cellblocks, cornered but not ready to surrender. The law enforcement officers left them alone and retreated, while in the warden's office a meeting was held to decide how to handle the situation. The assembled members of the press were told that no attempt to secure the cellblocks would take place that night. Governor Phil Donnelly, Lt. Governor James Blair, Director of Penal Institutions Thomas Whitecotton, Warden Ralph Eidson and Highway Patrol Superintendent Hugh Waggoner had been at the riot scene since it began and were growing weary. At last they announced that all troopers were to meet at seven the next morning, when they would be given instructions on how to enter the building. It was a sleepless night for the law enforcement teams.

Troopers storm the grounds

Two hundred forty-five troopers attended the next morning's meeting. Eighteen men were chosen to lead the way into the cellblocks where the cornered rioters were in a forbidding white stone building four stories tall. Trooper Wilson was one of those eighteen selected. One hundred St. Louis police officers and the remaining troopers would stand outside the prison yard as a second wall of defense. These officers were also to process the three hundred convicts, if and when they were taken captive. Wilson writes that this moment was the crucial one, when all of his training as a trooper would be put to the test.

It was a tense moment and anything could happen: We were heavily armed with riot guns and submachine guns as we entered the massive building. The inmates inside were shouting, cursing and throwing articles of bedding, furniture and personal belongings. They challenged, "Come on, we're ready!" All the windows had been broken out.

As we entered the door we were greeted by flying debris. A fifty-pound cake of ice, pushed from a tier above, barely missed my head. As we plunged through the hallway, wading in four inches of water. I noticed to my left that the water in front of one cell was crimson red. Red with the blood of one of the wounded convicts who had been stabbed earlier by a fellow inmate. Over the loud speaker, the convicts were ordered to get into the nearest cell and be quiet—or they would be shot.

One inmate ignored the order, leering and shouting. Without hesitation, one of the troopers raised his weapon and shot the troublemaker dead. At that, an eerie silence fell in the huge building. The convicts retreated into the nearest cell as instructed and the troopers slammed shut and locked the doors behind them. Up to nine prisoners were crammed into the tiny cells. When all were safely locked away, an all-clear whistle sounded. Then, one cell at a time, the men were strip-searched, taken out into the yard and processed by the waiting officers. They were returned to their proper cells. It took until mid-afternoon to finish the job.

Facts get sorted out

When the riot was all over, four inmates had been killed, fifty injured and one attempted suicide. Four officers had been injured. Burned out hulks of several buildings lay smoldering. Damage was estimated to be as high as five million dollars. Not one prisoner had succeeded in escaping the prison.

No attempt had been made to serve breakfast to the prisoners. Instead, they remained locked in their cells and sandwiches were handed out. The evening meal, usually served at four-thirty, was served at three. Small groups of convicts, with hands clasped behind their heads, were marched to the dining hall. Eighty-five troopers stood with weapons at the ready to prevent further violence.

For reporter East, the task remained of sorting fact from fiction. A rumor was flying that the inmate who had been killed for turning state's evidence, named Walter Lee Donnel, had had his tongue cut out by his attackers. Others claimed that story was false. East questioned Vic Buescher of Buescher's Funeral Home, where the body was being kept. Buescher confirmed that the inmate's tongue was indeed intact. It was also reported that the majority of the black inmates had not participated in the riot, and had remained in their cells throughout the ruckus.

Governor Donnelly acts

The day after the riot, Governor Donnelly ordered a massive shakedown of the entire prison. One hundred St. Louis policemen joined with prison guards to search every corner of the giant penitentiary for knives, homemade weapons and other contraband. The search revealed an enormous arsenal of weaponry: sledgehammers, axe handles, screwdrivers, scissors, files and pieces of heavy machinery filed down to sharp, deadly points.

Two days after the riot, Governor Donnelly grimly toured the ruined areas inside the prison. When he emerged, he announced that convening a special legislative session would probably not be necessary, as he felt repairs could be made with funds already on hand. Meanwhile, the prisoners were complaining to the press that one of the major causes of the riot had been dissatisfaction with the newly appointed Parole Board. Three members had been appointed just weeks before the riot, and all were former members of the highway patrol. The inmates claimed that these former cops, as they referred to them, would not be impartial when the time came for parole consideration.

During a press conference held the Monday following the riot, a reporter asked Governor Donnelly if he planned any changes in the Parole Board as a result of the prisoners' complaints.

"No sir," Donnelly replied irritably, "I'm not going to let a bunch of convicts tell me what to do."

He also emphasized that he did not plan to replace Thomas E. Whitecotton as Director of Corrections, despite demands that Whitecotton be ousted.

The new Parole Board members, like Whitecotton, were all former members of the Highway Patrol. They were Lewis M. Means, Ben B. Stewart, former Warden at the prison, and Elwood B. Robinson.

The Governor said he did not have information to comment on plans for rebuilding the seven buildings burned by rioters. But he repeated his previous statement that a special session of the Legislature would not be necessary to make an emergency appropriation.

The probes begin

A tour of riot-torn MSP by newsmen revealed that the locked up convicts wanted a probe by the FBI, better cooked food and the Parole Board ousted ... "Unless something is done about this place, it's going to happen again," shouted the inmates from their cells.

When asked specifically who in this state they would like to have conduct an investigation, the prisoners all agreed on the Rev. Charles Clark (The Dismas Priest).

Three murders of inmates in one 24-hour period prompted St. Louis Representative Peter J. Rabbitt, Chairman of the Legislative Committee on Prisons, to board a Highway Patrol plane for Jefferson City, vowing to keep his committee in session "until we get to the bottom of this."

It was then that Doc Maxey, in executive session, told the legislators that his records in the hospital showed 145 stabbings in a little over two years. In two weeks the hearings came to a close. Causes of the bloodletting were advanced: gambling, debts, sexual affairs, grudges, decline in the age of prisoners, an atrocious physical plant that made it almost impossible to control the population, low morale among guards who were unarmed in a giant prison where one inmate testified, "Every Tom, Dick and Harry has got a knife."

Col. James D. Carter, a former Marine Colonel who had run the Navy's disciplinary barracks at Portsmouth, N. H., came to Missouri in the wake of the riots. He told legislators that MSP was one of the "roughest damned prisons in the country" and expressed surprise there had not been more stabbings. He urged what had been suggested before: abandonment of the 47 acres and building a new prison.

E. V. Nash had led a detachment of Highway Patrol troopers into the riot-torn prison, and later became warden of MSP. After a legislative investigation Nash promised to put a halt to the bloodshed by cracking down on knives and a "flattening out" of anyone's time if caught with a shiv.

1. M-HALL ... This was a regular hall which housed men.
2. SCHOOL BUILDING ... This building contained the Catholic chapel, a dining room, a kitchen, Christian Science chapel, and the academic school.
3. GARNER HALL ... This building was the theater, which had a regular marquee and movie house setting. The Protestant chapel was in the front.
4. SHIRT BUILDING ... Used for manufacturing shirts.
5. TOBACCO BUILDING ... Used for the preparation of Ozark tobacco. There were several other small shops in this building.
6. PANTS AND BROOM BUILDING ... Used primarily for manufacturing brooms, pants and other textile products.
7. TAILOR SHOP ... This building is a factory under construction, and was not damaged.