SALT LAKE CITY — Earlier this month, the $12.4 million purchase for a new state prison — a 323-acre space located just west of the Salt Lake City International Airport — was completed.

The new location is 15 miles away from where Utah’s first prison once stood — the Sugar House Prison.

That prison opened in 1855 as a federally run penitentiary. It remained such until 1896, when Utah became a state. It remained the state’s prison until 1951, when a new prison was built in Draper, and the building was torn down.

Utah’s first prison site would later become one the more popular parks in the Salt Lake valley, where ample room allows visitors plenty of space for activities and a gorgeous view of the Wasatch Front.

It’s hard to imagine now that the area once held Utah’s criminals but hidden amidst some of the trees on the northern hill of the park stands the only remains of this prominent penitentiary.

The prison

What’s left of the prison isn’t much — just a marker attached to the few remaining adobe bricks.

According to the Utah Division of State History, the area for the prison was selected by Brigham Young in October 1853 mainly because of its safe 6-mile distance away from downtown Salt Lake City.

A Dec. 1, 1853, edition of the Deseret News included a brief about the penitentiary, with proposals and building designs requested for January 1854 for the letting process. A $20,000 appropriation toward the project would be rewarded from U.S. Congress, the article stated.

The prison, finished in late 1854, wouldn’t open until January 1855 and originally featured just 16 cells.

A 12-foot wall surrounded a building back of adobe brick, but inmate escapes weren’t uncommon due to how poor the facilities were originally constructed and how few guards the facility had.

Forty-seven of 240 prisoners (nearly 20 percent) housed at the prison from 1855 to 1878 escaped, according to a 2006 Deseret News article.

It wasn’t until 1866 that the facility was renovated to stone. The prison had nearly 250 steel cells and a 250-person capacity chapel as well as a 19-foot wall by 1882.

Inmates even raised their livestock in an area designated for farming. When the housing developments near Sugar House began to boom in the 1940s, it forced Utah into moving into a newer facility, which became the one at Point of the Mountain.

Execution of Joe Hill

Joel Hagglund, known as Joe Hill, was a famous labor union organizer and folk songwriter who was one of the prison’s most famous inmates.

Hill, a Swedish immigrant, became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World after years of doing various manual labor jobs in the U.S.

He was a songwriter — penning songs for the movement such as “Casey Jones — The Union Scab” and dozens of other labor songs.

Hill began working in the Park City mining industry in 1913. In 1914, he was arrested for the murder of a store owner and his 17-year-old son. Hill had been treated just days prior by a doctor for a bullet wound to his chest, which matched a description that the suspect had been wounded.

According to the Utah Division of State History, the trial became “polarized by labor issues and muddied by trial irregularities” — such as little evidence in the case, but also Hill’s inability to provide an alibi. Labor leaders even argued Hill was being set up by Utah’s copper bosses.

The case became a national headline, as a jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death.

Pleas came across the globe to spare Hill’s life, including one from Helen Keller.

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson even requested a stay of execution, but once that stay ended, Hill was executed by firing squad at the penitentiary on the morning Nov. 19, 1915.

According to an article published in the Nov. 19 edition of the Deseret News, Hill struggled with guards in the hours before his execution, maintained his innocence and in the moments just before he was shot yelled "fire!" to the shooters.

The day before his death, he penned one last song called “Joe Hill’s Last Will.”

Hill closed the song: “This is my last and final will. Good luck to you all.”

His ashes were later spread across the country through the Industrial Workers of the World and his death became a rallying cry for American labor protests.

The park

After Utah’s prison was moved to Point of the Mountain, the old penitentiary was eventually scrapped.

In 1947, a Sugar House businessman named Horace Sorensen believed the site could become a state park, according to the park's website. In 1951, Utah Gov. Bracken Lee, instead, offered Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County the option to buy the land for public use, which both did.

The city and county would pay $225,000 over five joint payments for the land that was paid off in 1956.

On July 16, 1957, more than 100 years after the prison opened, the land was turned over to the Sugar House Park Authority to turn it into a public park.

Another portion of the original prison land that was not sold to the city and county was instead used to build Highland High School.

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