This Week in Texas Prison History

October 5:

• 1885 - Yesterday sixty convicts made a break for liberty at the terminus of the Kansas and Gulf Short Line Railroad near Lufkin, in Angelina County. It occurred at 5 o'clock, just as the convicts had finished their supper. With deafening yells they all in one accord rushed for the woods. The guards emptied their shot guns and small arms into the ranks of the fleeing fugitives. The dead and wounded numbered twenty-five. A rumor that there would be a mutiny has been afloat for some time and was strengthened by the fact that many of the men on the works were life timers and desperate characters, and extra precautions were accordingly being taken to be able to avert and stop if possible. The management has subsidized every agency and all possible efforts will be enlisted to recapture the fugitives. State Superintendent of Penitentiaries Goree, who was at Dallas on business, was early this morning notified from Huntsville of the break in the following telegram: "There was a general break at O'Brien's railroad camp on the evening of the 4th. Some killed, many wounded and between forty and fifty escaped. John Sterett." Mr. Goree said that he would start at once for the scene and is expected to arrive thought. (Dallas Morning News. Special to The News. October 6, 1885)

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