GETTING sent to the Vaughan Street Jail could be really bad noose.
A lot of people met their demise at the end of a rope in this damp, dank, foreboding place, as "hangman Arthur Ellis" recounted Saturday with far more glee than some of his victims may have derived from the gallows experience.
Gail McCallum takes a seat in a cell in the basement of the Vaughan Street Jail Saturday during Doors Open.
Bank robber Jack Krafchenko was hanged in the jail's courtyard after murdering a bank manager in Plum Coulee, "Ellis" chortled Saturday to a group of wide-eyed tourists.
"I was the one responsible for hanging that sorry excuse. He drew his last breath at the Vaughan Street Jail," said Ellis, who also described a botched execution in 1928 when the noose tore off a man's head.
Hundreds got a rare glimpse of the 126-year-old concrete fortress Saturday. It was one of 52 buildings involved in the annual Doors Open Winnipeg weekend to show off the insides of historic structures normally closed to the public.
A list of times and buildings open today is available at www.doorsopenwinnipeg.ca.
Historical characters are staffing the jail this weekend, talking about its glory and gory days, when children as young as five were put behind bars alongside murderers and felons bound for the gallows.
Prison warden Patrick Lawlor stepped out of character to talk about efforts of the Friends of the Vaughan Street Jail to restore it as a tourist attraction.
"We don't want them to tear it down. It's under threat from natural conditions," said Kristen Verin-Treusch, the "warden" showing off the basement cells.
This weekend is the only access all year to the jail, said the operator of a day care and a tourism business. Verin-Treusch said that Europe is full of morbid sites that attract lots of people.
"It's called dark tourism," she said. "This is our objective, to turn it into an attraction."
The provincially owned building has deteriorated, barring access beyond the second floor, she said.
Characters on duty Saturday included magistrate Thomas Daly and five-year-old inmate Fred Bacon.
Daly hailed the 1908 passage of the Juvenile Delinquents Act, which allowed judges to send kids to a detention centre for care and rehabilitation rather than give them hard time with the felons.
"Fred Bacon was five years old, and a resident of this jail," said Daly, who noted kids could be jailed for truancy in his day.
"You don't want to go to school, maybe a couple of days in the Vaughan Street Jail will change your mind."
nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
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