Historic Pottawattamie County 
Squirrel Cage Jail

            The unique Squirrel Cage jail in Council Bluffs served as the Pottawattamie County Jail from 1885 until 1969.         

             The unique “Squirrel Cage” rotary jail in Council Bluffs served as the Pottawattamie County Jail from September 1885 until December 1969.  It was America’s largest rotary jail, an idea first patented in July 1881 by William Brown and Benjamin Haugh of Indianapolis. The purpose of the new jail was "to produce a jail in which prisoners can be controlled without the necessity of personal contact between them and the jailer." In addition, a rotary jail would provide "maximum security with minimum jailer attention."  In many ways, the rotary jail mirrors some of the theories behind Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon invented as “penal imprisonment, from the beginning of the nineteenth century, covered both the deprivation of liberty and the technical transformation of individuals.“  According to Michel Focault, the Panopticon consisted of cells arranged around a central tower, “so many cages, so many small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualized and constantly visible.” Strict segregation was intended for “individualizing observation, with characteritization and classification, with the analytical arrangement of space.”  Brown and Haugh’s rotary jail dispensed with the central tower and constant observation in favor of a what one Iowa State Professor later called a “device in which human welfare had been sacrificed for security and the convenience of the jailer…”

             In spite of future problems, the supposed effectiveness of the rotary jail and its low costs of operation soon came to the attention of the Pottawattamie County Board.  In 1882, architects Eckel and Mann first supplied local officials with designs for a new county jail and members of the county board approved plans for the new jail two years later. In early 1885, county officials headed south to Missouri to inspect the jails at Saint Joseph and Mayville.  Finally, in what would become a rare occurrence through the years, a bond issue was passed in Pottawattamie County on March 10, 1885 with 5232 voters in favor of building a new courthouse and jail and 2933 opposed.

             Bids to start construction of the new jail were opened in April 1885 and work was completed in just five months.  According to The Council Bluffs Globe, the new jail cost the taxpayers not quite $30,000 with $21,000 of the sum for the metal from Haugh & Ketcham's Indiana foundry. General contractors were Wickham Brothers of Council Bluffs who also did all the masonry work. The outside walls of the jail are three layers of brick thick while all interior walls are two layers thick. Other Council Bluffs workers included John Epenter, who supplied the jail's metal cornice and slate roofing, carpenter G.S. Lawson, and painter B. Terwillinger.

            On September 11, 1885 the Council Bluffs Globe reported that Sheriff Theodore Guittar, Jailer Schontz, and Constable McFadden had moved the first inmates into the jail.  The first guests at the Squirrel Cage included murderer Cuff Johnson, horse-thief Miles Mullen, forger Frank Scofield, confidence man Ed Rankin, John Gordon who had violated the revenue laws, and Mr. And Mrs. Brock and their teenaged daughter had been transferred from Manning, Iowa and were all imprisoned for larceny.

             During its 84 years of operation the jail would host a colorful mix of prisoners although as early as 1887 the Council Bluffs Globe declared the jail "pretty near a failure" as it would not rotate properly on its axis. In March 1896, the Nonpareil reported that the previous jailer had left the jail in a “filthy condition” for newly elected Sheriff Morgan.  The jail, which held 32 prisoners at the time, was renovated and cleaned with three new coats of paint added inside.  The cylinder itself was painted three different colors, the walls were painted white, and the stairs and railings jet black.  The cost of the renovation was $1,000, which included a new supply of bedding for prisoners.  Just six years later in 1902, a Council Bluffs Grand jury had condemned the city’s jail but found the Squirrel Cage in "good, sanitary condition." Future inspections would be much less generous.  In August 1904 the Nonpareil reported that the Jail got stuck for three days. The rotary cage was “used only at night” and during the daytime the 10 prisoners then incarcerated were “let out into the corridor”.  Four years later in 1908, a different Grand Jury condemned the Squirrel Cage as a “crusty clink” health hazard.  The Jail would ultimately be condemned by over two dozen similar Grand Juries through the years, mostly for the same reasons, typically sending the Sheriff and county officials scrambling to find the necessary funds to keep the place operational.

              In spite of its justifiably notorious reputation, a few good times at the jail also appeared in the newspaper.  One November 1918 article described the annual Thanksgiving dinner given to the 30 men and one woman then incarcerated at the Squirrel Cage.  According to the article, the “hospitality of the jailer and the home cooking of his wife, brought smiles to the faces of each unfortunate and they were the recipients of hearty and sincere congratulations.”  The Thanksgiving dinner served to prisoners that year included celery soup, a Prohibition-era Manhattan cocktail, the “Kaiser’s Goat” (which was reportedly intentionally too tough to eat), roast goose with dressing, mashed potatoes, creamed peas, olives, bread and butter, coffee, assorted pies a la mode, and cigarettes.  Other times were far grimmer.  Although the jail was designed to house a maximum of about 85 prisoners, the Squirrel Cage reached its probable maximum capacity in 1929 when 165 prisoners were reputedly incarcerated there.

             In November 1960, the Squirrel Cage was closed for a variety of renovations.  District Court Judges had not sentenced anyone to the Jail since mid-September as the jail had become “unfit because of health and safety reasons.“  Five prisoners were escorted across the street to the Council Bluffs Jail located on the second floor of City Hall and three others were hauled down to the Page County Jail at Clarinda.  According to Jailer Bill Foster, “It’s going to be pretty quiet around here until we are back in business again.”  The costs of renovation and improvements were estimated at $4,000.  Sheriff Roy Wichael held an “open house” at the county jails in Council Bluffs and Avoca for public inspection.  When the jail re-opened, America’s largest rotary jail had been fixed in place and has not rotated since.

             Nonetheless, the last nine years would prove to be some of the Squirrel Cage’s most interesting and contentious as its continued use became a source of head-shaking amazement.  In spite of the various improvements, the Jail remained a sore spot with Sheriff Wichael who complained to the Des Moines Register in 1961 that the Squirrel Cage had been “condemned a dozen times by the county board.”  The Jail underwent another facelift at the same time when the Sheriff’s Department moved its offices into the basement of the neighboring Courthouse.  Just three years later, a $440,000 bond issue to construct a new jail failed at the polls and the District Court ordered the Squirrel Cage closed for six months for its various “inadequacies and deplorable conditions.”

             One indication of the Jail’s future came in October 1965 when an official of the U.S. Department of the Interior recommended that the structure should be preserved as an “oddity.”  Nonetheless, the Squirrel Cage’s time as a jail were truly numbered.  According to the Nonpareil in December 1968, the Iowa Department of Social Services informed the Pottawattamie County Board that the jail should “not be used to confine inmates” and cited a laundry list of reasons compiled by Iowa’s Chief Jail Inspector (and former Council Bluffs Chief of Police) William Swassing.  According to Swassing’s report, the Jail’s deficiencies included lack of individual cells with all prisoners housed together regardless of the severity of their crimes and that the jail was unsafe for officers due to numerous blind spots, noting that the “jailer refuses to enter the cell block alone.”  Staff also had limited control over the cell block while the 83 year old building’s electrical wiring was “old, inadequate, and exposed,” the lighting inadequate, and the plumbing “old, deteriorated, and often backs up” making sanitation “extremely difficult.”  Furthermore, the kitchen was too small, the roof leaked with pans placed everywhere whenever it rained, the food supplies froze solid on occasion in winter, and there was no place for “recreation, rehabilitation, segregated quarters for work release inmates or counseling and visitation….”

             In spite of the County Board’s pleas to officials in Des Moines to bring the Jail up to code, the Squirrel Cage was closed for good on December 1, 1969 following the failure of a $220,000 bond issue to build a new correctional facility.  The 11 prisoners held inside were sent to the Page County Jail in Clarinda at a cost of $10 each per day with an additional $10 charge for each woman prisoner.  The Squirrel Cage’s last Jailers, Jesse and Gladys Poor, were prepared to move out by the middle of the month.  At the same time, Frederic Schlott, Chairman of the Council Bluffs Park Board, was leading efforts to preserve the jail as a good bet for a tourist draw.  Demolition was narrowly avoided and the Council Bluffs Park Board purchased the Jail for $5,000 the next year and agreed to operate the property with the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County.

             The jail's rotary cylinder remained in operation for 75 years although it suffered from a variety of malfunctions from almost the beginning. The cylinder is 28 feet high, 24 feet in diameter, weighs just over 20,000 pounds empty, and is suspended from an iron beam on the fourth floor. The cylinder, cage, and all other metalwork was shipped to Council Bluffs from the Haugh and Ketcham Ironworks in Indianapolis. The cylinder has three floors with ten pie shaped cells on each floor designed to hold two prisoners per cell.  Since there was only one entrance or exit on each floor the entire cylinder had to be turned with a hand-crank until the cell was lined up with the opening in the cage.  For additional security, a water wheel was also reputedly used to continuously rotate the Squirrel Cage at night when the Jailer went to bed.  Undoubtedly, the resulting racket would make sleep almost impossible and any evidence of this power source was removed long ago.       

              The 1885 Pottawattamie County Jail is a Victorian Gothic styled building with detailed brick work and limestone trim.  Other notable qualities include the building's tin cornice work, slate roofing, and cupola.  The structure's elaborate exterior brick work and Romanesque arched windows on the upper story stand in stark contrast with the building's metal interior and grim purpose.  The three-tiered Squirrel Cage is located in the octagonal rear section of the jail with additional cells for women, juveniles, and trustees above the office and kitchen and an apartment for the Jailer and his family on the top floor.    

                The jail was designed by the renowned architectural firm headed by Alsatian immigrant Edmund Jacques Eckel and Hoosier George Mann.  Eckel was apprenticed to a prominent contractor at the age of thirteen and later worked with the official City Architect of Strasbourg.  In 1864 he entered the 116 year old Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris a year after the school first became independent of the French monarchy.  Eckel immigrated to the United States soon after graduation and while on the train from Omaha to Kansas City stopped in Saint Joe in July 1869.  He found work as a draftsman in the bustling Missouri city which was then undergoing a building boom during its quick recovery from the Civil War.             

            Eckel's reputation had spread by 1873 when he started his own company and his work included an opera house in Lincoln, Nebraska, the German Catholic School and home of the Sisters of Charity in Saint Joe, and residences ranging from fancy brick homes for the well-to-do to humble frame tenements.  In 1880 Eckel went into partnership with his former draftsman George Mann, a native of Indiana who was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Warehouses and mansions made up some of the firm's first contracts and in 1881 they were selected to design a new Nodaway County Courthouse and Jail at Maryville, Missouri.  The courthouse featured a 111 foot clock tower and the new jail was designed as one of the first rotary jails built in the country.  The pair were chosen as architects of the Pottawattamie County Courthouse and rotary jail soon afterwards.  During these years Eckel and Mann also designed the Atchison County Courthouse in Rockport, Missouri; the Gentry County Courthouse in Albany, Missouri; and the DeKalb County Courthouse and rotary jail in Maysville, Missouri.

              After briefly ending their partnership, Eckel and Mann renewed their business in 1887.  A year later they hired New York native Harvey Ellis as their draftsman and in 1889 Eckel and Mann designed Saint Joe's German-American Bank.  Ellis is largely credited for the intricate ornamentation on the firm's later works which grew even more elaborate in detail.  In 1890 the firm received what was to be their most prestigious contract when they won a national competition to design Saint Louis City Hall which remains a prominent landmark today.  Based on a French hotel, the four-story building contained 150 rooms and cost around two million dollars to finish in time for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition.         

              In 1890 Eckel and Mann dissolved their partnership once again.  George Mann remained in Saint Louis to work with Ellis and then moved to Arkansas where he designed a variety of buildings in Hot Springs, Eldorado, and the Arkansas State House in Little Rock.  Harvey Ellis drifted back to New York and worked with Gustav Stickney whose Craftsman and Mission designs swept American architecture in the early 20th century.  Ellis drank himself to death in 1904.

              Edmund Eckel remained in Saint Joe where his work included designing the city's Union Station, High School, and Livestock Exchange Building.  From 1903 to 1905 Eckel and Mann briefly renewed their partnership.  Mann then returned to Arkansas where he died in 1939.  Eckel's later designs in Saint Joe included the Immaculate Conception Church, City Hall, and the fourteen story Corby-Forsee Building which was built in 1909 as the city's first and only skyscraper.  Edmund Eckel died in 1934 although the firm he began still exists today under the name of Brunner & Brunner.

           Pottawattamie County's first jail, the "Old Cottonwood" was built in 1849 at what is now 216 First Street.  It was constructed out of cottonwood logs with iron spike driven through the walls to impeded tunneling.  The county sold the jail to the City of Council Bluffs in 1862 and the building was hauled a few blocks away to the corner of Vine and Second Streets where it was used as the city "calaboose" until 1866 when it burned to the ground with one prisoner trapped inside.

              Also in 1866, the Pottawattamie County Board purchased three lots on the corner of what is now Pearl Street and Ninth Avenue to build a new Courthouse with a jail located in the basement.   The new courthouse and jail cost $50,000 and was completed during the winter of 1868.  Just 16 years later in June 1884 the damp jail in the basement was declared unfit and the Courthouse building was condemned by Council Bluffs City Marshall Guanella that November.  A month later in December 1884 the Council Bluffs Health Board gave county officials just three days to evacuate the courthouse building and offices were temporarily moved into the Masonic Temple at Fourth Street and West Broadway.

            The top floor of the current Pottawattamie County Courthouse was originally designed as the county's new jail that also held city prisoners after 1977 when the jail at Council Bluffs City Hall was closed.  Overcrowding at the county jail proved problematic with a record 75 prisoners incarcerated during November 1994.  A new Pottawattamie County Jail finally opened in 1999 on the north side of Council Bluffs with a capacity of 286 prisoners.  

              Although no prisoners were ever taken out of the Squirrel Cage there were a few close calls.  In 1894 a crooked foot-racer and gambler Leon Lozier was accused of molesting a five year old neighbor girl at a duplex at 1115 Avenue D.  By nightfall, a restless mob estimated at 2,000 people had gathered out front where the door was blocked by Pottawattamie County Sheriff John Hazen, four deputies, Council Bluffs Chief of Police John Scanlan, and three city police officers.  Apparently, black man named John Berger forced his way to the front of the crowd and shouted that if the suspect would have been black they would have already lynched him.  "Give me the rope, I will lead the crowd!" Berger cried out before officers escorted him from the premises.  To help control the situation, 29 soldiers armed with Winchester Rifles were called out from the Dodge Light Guards Armory.  The frustrated lynch mob slowly dispersed after midnight and Lozier was taken to the Mills County Jail in Glenwood for safekeeping.

               Nine years later in December 1903 there were several reports of women in Council Bluffs being robbed of their belongings while walking down the street.  Police were eventually led to a four bedroom "shack" at 1508 Third Avenue where several stolen items were recovered and two black men, Neely Zimmerman and George Burk, were arrested.  The pair were taken to the Squirrel Cage and placed at the rear of the top tier of cells and rotated away from the platform.  At the same time, the keys to all cells were taken out of the jail as five jailors, with orders to "shoot to kill," put up steel barricades and armed themselves with Winchesters, repeating shotguns, and revolvers.  Their fears were well founded as that night a crowd gathered in front of the jail and were egged on by ex-convict "Dutch" Stevenson and a few others to storm the jail.  At a quarter to one in the morning Company L of the 51st Iowa Regiment were called out to the jail to restore order and were backed up by 50 local citizens determined to avert the lynching.  The crowd faded away although the soldiers remained in position in front of the jail until 4:30 the next morning.  "Dutch" Stevenson  was arrested the next day for attempting to incite a riot and it came out that his true motive was to free his associate Michael C. Rogers, ringleader of the "Rogers' Gang," who was being held at the Squirrel Cage charged with killing Bert Forney while robbing Forney's saloon at 1028 West Broadway.  Nonetheless, Sheriff's deputies spirited Zimmerman and Burk out of town later that day for safekeeping before trial.  

              There were numerous escape attempts during the jail's 84 years in operation and some of them were even successful.              

          Council Bluffs resident Dallas Birt escaped from the Squirrel Cage in 1938 when he forced a hole through the ceiling of the jail's hospital and slid down an outside ventilation pipe.  He was captured soon afterwards after his own father turned him in.  Four years later, Birt escaped from the jail again, this time by sawing a bar out of a second-story window.  Birt was captured just four days later while in the possession of burglar's tools. 

              In July 1949, two prisoners walked away from the jail during church services and then robbed two gas stations at gun-point before they were recaptured.  Two months later, the same pair were involved in another escape when five prisoners got out of the Squirrel Cage by digging a hole through the 18" thick brick walls.  Three of them were caught in Council Bluffs the next day and the other two were thought to have fled south to Missouri.  

  Theodore Guittar was Sheriff of Pottawattamie County when the Squirrel Cage first opened in 1885.  Born in Saint Louis, his father Francis Guittar had first come to southwest Iowa as a fur trader in the 1820's and had opened one of the first stores in Council Bluffs in 1852 in a log building on the corner of Main Street and Broadway.  Three years later thirteen-year old Theodore joined his father in Council Bluffs where he remained until enlisting in the Second Iowa Battery during the Civil War.  Theodore returned to town after the war and worked as a Deputy Sheriff for two years and then served as Council Bluffs City Constable.  Theodore Guittar was first elected Sheriff of Pottawattamie County in 1881 and was re-elected two years later.  In 1890, he became the U.S. Deputy Collector of Internal Revenue in Council Bluffs.          

  Edward Canning served as City Marshal of Council Bluffs from 1894 to 1898 and also served as the city's Chief of Police those last two years.  Canning served two terms as Sheriff of Pottawattamie County and was first elected in 1902.  Canning later became a real estate dealer locally and then with the Canadian Pacific Railroad.  He died in San Francisco in 1930.  Canning Street in Council Bluffs is named after Edward's father whose home stood along the street.

  Robert and Eva Heller served as Jailer and Matron early in the 20th century.  Natives of Avoca, Robert Heller was a veteran of the Spanish-American War. 

  William "Bill" Duff was Pottawattamie County Chief Deputy from 1932 until 1938 and lived at 526 Fourth Street.  After working as a deputy, Duff worked as a carman for the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad until he retired in 1947.  He died in 1961.

  In January 1949 Otto Gudath was appointed Jailer and his wife Matron.  Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Otto moved to Council Bluffs in 1912 and worked as a butcher for thirty-six years of his life.

  Emmett Hannan was elected Sheriff in 1958 and did much to modernize the department.  A Democrat, Hannan appointed Roy Wichael Chief Deputy and replaced much of the staff.  Tim Ryan of 3037 Avenue A replaced Arthur Schuelzky as night Jailer, Mr. And Mrs. W.C. McDaniel replaced the Gudath's as day Jailer and Matron, and W.E. Glaser was named relief Jailer. 

  Two years later in 1960, Wilman T. "Bill" and Louise Foster were hired as Jailer and Matron in 1960.  Bill Foster was born in Naper, Nebraska and came to Council Bluffs in 1932.  Louise died in 1966 and Bill retired two years later.  He lived at 1510 Avenue A until his death in 1979.

  William R. "Bat" Masterson was appointed Chief Deputy Sheriff in May 1960 after spending nine years with the Council Bluffs Police Department.   A native of Shenandoah, Masterson served in World War II who moved to Council Bluffs in 1949.  When Masterson resigned in 1964 he was living at 1244 Fairmont Avenue.

  Joseph Mitchell was appointed Deputy in October 1961.  A native of Honey Creek, Mitchell had served as a Marine during the Korean War and lived at 3443 Avenue A.

  Hiram "Hi" Jefferson Carter served as Pottawattamie County Deputy Sheriff from January 1, 1945 until January 1, 1975.  He died that July.  

              A total of eighteen rotary jails are thought to have been built altogether around the country but details remain sketchy.  The majority of America's rotary jails contained two tiers of cells and were constructed by the Pauly Jail Building and Manufacturing Company of Saint Louis, Missouri.  Today, only three remain standing and all are open to the public as museums showcasing one of America's more peculiar methods of penal incarceration.

- Crawfordsville, Indiana: America's first rotary jail was built for Montgomery County in 1882 with sixteen cells and living quarters for the Sheriff.  In 1930 the jail was declared "old, insecure, and unsafe" by the Indiana Board of Charities but continued to rotate until 1939 and remained the county jail until 1973. 

- Maryville, Missouri: The Nodaway County Jail in Maryville was the first rotary jail designed by Eckel and Mann and was constructed in 1882 by F.C. Allen.  The cylinder was welded in 1904 after one prisoner's head was crushed while the jail was turning.

- Gallatin, Missouri: The Daviess County Jail was constructed in 1888 by B. Pauley and the Jail Building and Manufacturing Company. The small one-story jail contains eight cells and is attached to the larger brick Sheriff's residence.  The cylinder stopped revolving in 1964 but remained in use as the county jail until it was closed in 1975.  

- Maysville, Missouri: The DeKalb County Jail was also designed by Eckel and Mann with eight cells.  It remained in use until 1938 when both the jail and neighboring courthouse were demolished.

- Wichita, Kansas: The Sedgwick County Jail was built between 1884-87 with space for sixty prisoners in the rotary cylinder and 150 total prisoners.  The jail closed in 1921 and the interior metal-work was donated to the Wichita Zoo. 

- Grayson County, Texas: Built 1887

- Appleton, Wisconsin

- Salt Lake City, Utah Territory

- Pueblo, Colorado

- Oswego, New York

- Burlington, Vermont

- Dover, New Hampshire

- Charleston, West Virginia

- Paducah, Kentucky

  - Waxahachie, Texas: the Ellis County Jail was built in 1888 with twenty cells.

                Construction of a new Pottawattamie County Courthouse in Council Bluffs took place at the same time as the Squirrel Cage and was also designed by architects Eckel and Mann.  The white limestone building was designed in the Second Empire style with steep mansard roofs, projecting pavilions, a central tower, and above the entrance a statue of Justinia bearing a sword and not wearing a blind-fold. 

              In August 1885 the county accept Wickham Brothers bid of $136,000 to construct the courthouse with much of the masonry work done by Stephen Robinson and the decorative features by K. Norling.  The courthouse was finally dedicated in March 1888 and was reputed to have cost just over $180,000 to finish.  Chairman Underwood of the Pottawattamie County Board of Supervisors noted that although construction costs had escalated the work was "done as good and as cheap as competition would admit." Colonel D.B. Dalley of Council Bluffs called the building a "monument" to those "who have watched the interests of the tax payers in the past" and declared that outside of the State Capitol in Des Moines the county's new courthouse was the "finest in the State of Iowa."  The Pottawattamie County Bar Association hosted an elegant six-course banquet held in the south court room to celebrate the buildings opening.

              Dealing with the costs of maintenance and modernization of the Courthouse were left to later county boards.  An elevator was finally installed in 1947, 61 years after the shaft had been built for it, although one county official labeled the building a "disgrace and the clock tower that seemed to sway more with every breeze was removed in 1950.  A one-ton air conditioner was installed in the County Recorder's office in 1956 and in 1961 county officials had the interior walnut woodwork painted institutional green.  Proposals to construct a new courthouse were rejected in 1962, as was a later plan to build a combined courthouse, jail, city hall, and police station.  By the end of 1972 county government was sinking to new lows as the courthouse's foundation appeared to drop at a rate of a quarter-inch to two inches a month.  Funds were expended to stabilize the foundation the next year but precarious situation forced the removal of Justinia in February 1974 before she fell from her perch to the sidewalk below.

               In August 1973 almost 80% of county voters approved a 2.5 million dollar bond issue to construct the present courthouse along with 4.5 million dollars from the federal government.  Designed by architects Hollis and Miller of Overland Park, Kansas, construction of the five-story building began in January 1975.   In September 1977, a portion of the old courthouse removed by lawyer Dudley Gray and rebuilt along Crenshaw Avenue in Torrance, California as the four-story Iowa Courthouse Building.  The remainder of the 1888 structure was demolished a month later.