Red Shirt Gordon

Red Shirt Gordon was a criminal who escaped from Folsom Prison in California as leader of the "Big Break" in 1903. Gordon and twelve other prisoners overpowered guards, took hostages, and escaped from the prison, which at the time had no walls. Six fugitives were captured (one in 1910), and one was killed. Two of the men were executed and three received life sentences. Five escapees, including Gordon, were never recaptured.

Persondata
Name Gordon, Red Shirt
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death


Famous quotes containing the words red, shirt and/or gordon:

    The Red Cross in its nature, it aims and purposes, and consequently, its methods, is unlike any other organization in the country. It is an organization of physical action, of instantaneous action, at the spur of the moment; it cannot await the ordinary deliberation of organized bodies if it would be of use to suffering humanity, ... [ellipsis in original] it has by its nature a field of its own.
    Clara Barton (1821–1912)

    For a shirt verminously busy
    Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths
    Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice.
    Isaac Rosenberg (1890–1918)

    There now are no Squire Westerns as of old;
    And our Sophias are not so emphatic,
    But fair as then, or fairer to behold.
    We have no accomplish’d blackguards, like Tom Jones,
    But gentlemen in stays, as stiff as stones.
    —George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)