My granddaughter recently graduated from law school. While there, she got involved in a program which sought to secure parole releases for inmates. She got to know one of them quite well, and a week or so ago, we went up to meet him. It was an inspiring and sobering and overall positive experience. One key part of the whole thing, as one might expect, was contact with the facility itself. It was my first time inside a prison, but not exactly my first contact with the place that is now called Mule Creek State Prison. Let me, as the politicians say, make myself perfectly clear (a sure signal that they are seeking to confuse. I hope not, though.
When I was but a wee lad–well maybe not “wee”–but, as the song goes, “so much older then. I’m younger than that now,” there stood in the Sierra foothill town of Ione what we called back in those days, a “Reform School.” Preston was its name. Today, it is the site of Mule Creek State Prison, a title that suits its function much better than the other titles it has borne–Preston school of industry, Preston Castle (one glance at the image tells you why that name), Preston correctional institute, Preston Juvenile Detention Facility–and other such titles. Romanesque Revival is the name of the architectural style. Henry Atherton Schulze was the architect. I include these names because it’s obvious that a great deal of thought and artistry went into its design and construction. Whether it was intended to convey the feeling of an imposing medieval prison or a majestic house of civil law and order or of something else entirely I do not know.
I knew about institution only vaguely, and as far as I recall I never laid eyes or set foot on the place despite knowing it was there and what it was called.But its name and title is the kind of thing that parents could use to scare their kids into behaving. Or maybe behaving badly. It opened officially. in 1894, named after state senator Edward Myers Preston. Doubtless Senator Myers was proud of the establishment and believed, as people tend to do, that he was providing an opportunity to turn bad boys into good ones and to protect the good citizens of Amador County, CA from evildoers of the community. The stated aim was to rehabilitate rather than simply imprison young offenders. At least ones inhabiting that region circa 1894.
I found no statistics about how successful were Senator Preston’s efforts to purge the nasty impulses of youthful lawbreakers, but the idea seems to have been credible enough to keep the place open for more than a century. It finally closed in 2010. There is now sign of the red brick Harry Potter construction seen in the illustration of this post. Just a collection of one-and-two story buildings of decidedly undistinguished design. It has all the ambience of a low-grade strip mall. Past, however, according to my wikipedia sources, its eerie appearances secured it a number of roles in paranormal movies. If you look it up on You Tube will have a you will find yourself on a wild ride. Or you can look up “Haunting at Preston Castle””Napoleon Dynamite and other such deathless horror thrillers
Next Post a state prison tour.
Stay tuned.
