Origin
During the late 19th century the population in the Upper Peninsula quickly grew as did the number of criminal convictions. Lower Michigan prisons (Ionia and Jackson) were becoming overpopulated and the cost of moving prisoners from the Upper Peninsula to the Lower Peninsula prisons was becoming expensive. Talk of building a prison in the Upper Peninsula began. The Business Men’s Association of Marquette, Michigan argued that Marquette provided a “centrally located community with excellent transportation and water facilities as well as the natural resources required to build the prison.” The Michigan legislature appropriated $150,000 to fund the proposed prison. The prison board of commissioners approved the site for the Marquette Branch Prison. A total of ten companies submitted bids for the prison. The lowest bid ($135,817.00) belonged to Wahlman and Grip of Ishpheming and they were given the contract. The first buildings included an administration building, east and west cell block wings connected by a rotunda, a dining hall, a hospital, and a power house. Construction began with the rotunda and west wing in July 1886 and all buildings were completed by June 22, 1889.
Read more about this topic: Marquette Branch Prison
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
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—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)