Press Release: March 25, 2009
Central Plains Region
MUGGED! on display at Wyandotte County (KS) Historical Museum
For More Information Contact:
Kimberlee Ried
(816) 268-8000
Kansas City, (MO)…MUGGED! A Rogue’s Gallery of Leavenworth Penitentiary Mug Shots is a captivating collection of photographs that provides a window into prison life in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The exhibit, on loan from the National Archives, will be on display from March 15 to May 31, 2009 at the Wyandotte County Historical Museum located at 631 N. 126th Street, Wyandotte County Park, Bonner Springs, Kansas.
Included in the exhibit are portraits of murderers, thieves, con men, bootleggers, gangsters, white-collar criminals, and an assortment of other lawbreakers, ranging from radical labor union leader William "Big Bill" Haywood and Robert Stroud — better known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz" — to African American heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson and train robber Al Jennings.
On March 3, 1891, the passage of the “Three Prisons Act” authorized the building of three prison sites, the first of which was Leavenworth, Kansas, located twenty five miles north of Kansas City, Kansas. Construction began in 1896 and by 1906 construction was officially completed and all Federal prisoners were transferred to the new facility.
The exhibit’s mug shots represent a very small portion of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)-Central Plains Region’s Records of the Bureau of Prisoners which encompasses all the records of prisoners sentenced to the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. The Wyandotte County Historical Museum has added materials from the county’s infamous men, including Pretty Boy Floyd and Armourdale train robber William Latrasse. The exhibit is free and the museum is open Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
This exhibit is on loan from the National Archives-Central Plains Region, one of 13 facilities nationwide where the public has access to Federal archival records. The Central Plains Region is home to more than 50,000 cubic feet of historical records dating from the 1820s to the 1990s created or received by nearly 100 federal agencies. It houses records from the states of Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. The facility is located at 400 E Pershing, Kansas City, MO 64108. Open to the public Tuesday - Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call (816) 268-8000 or visit the Central Plains Region web page.
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