...and here's what we found. Here's the only evidence of "Seatco" we could find:

Mike is absolutely right. We found a little memorial at the site of the old prison.

Interestingly, there was a fence around the stone, I'm guessing to protect it from vandalism?

Behind the monument is a park, of sorts, leading down to the Skookumchuck River.

There is also a sign describing the "Mutual Lumber Company" complete with a list of all known employees (the sign says it was a Boy Scout project).

Here's the text:

I thought this part was interesting -- notice the ball and chain:

All in all, it was sort of an odd experience. The spot was idyllic, but the history was grim. It made the whole thing a little surreal -- sort of like when I visited the concentration camp at Auschwitz (also in an idyllic setting).

This database contains the prison register of more than 500 inmates housed in the Seatco Prison. The Prison operated from 1877 until 1888 when the new Territorial Penitentiary was built in Walla Walla.

Mr. Dwelley (1930-2000 Oct. 10) was a writer, historian, and newspaper editor associated with the Tenino area. This article appeared in The Olympian Mar. 30, 1988, obviously before the memorial stone was placed:

Prison reaped profits in 1870s : Bucoda location once rattled with balls and chains / by Arthur G. Dwelley

Chain gangs on the Skookumchuck? Yes, it's true. Washington Territory's first prison was located in Bucoda, at the time called Seatco.

It was a contract operation which became infamous for alleged inhumane treatment of its prisoners. No trace of it remains, and its former location near the southern limits of the small Thurston County town is unmarked.

Until 1878 Washington Territory had no prison facilities other than county jails. Before that time local sheriffs were paid $1 per day to keep territorial prisoners, and the lawmen were allowed to use convict labor as they wished. This made for a certain amount of abuse both of territorial funds and of inmates.

Early legislators were a thrifty lot who decided it would be better to house all the prisoners in one place, but they were not keen about putting up the money to build a prison. They had talked a lot about a territorial penitentiary and even proposed a site or two, including Port Townsend and Vancouver. But their frugality won out, and they approved a contract with private operators in 1877.

William Billings, sheriff of Thurston County, and Jerry Smith, a former Pierce County Sheriff, won the contract. They joined with Seatco mill owner Oliver Shead, who provided the land for the prison and, from his sawmill, the material to build it. The partners would recive 75 cents a day for each prisoner's keep; they could utilize the convicts' labor as they saw fit.

Establishing the prison at Seatco did not please John Miller Murphy, publisher of the Washington Standard newspaper in Olympia. Murphy had apparently been under the impression that Billings would build the prison near his beloved Olympia-- perhaps in Tumwater-- and he never forgave the sheriff and his partners for choosing Seatco. Every escape or mishap at the prison drew his attention, and he rarely passed up an opportunity to criticize the contractors. In time his and other newspapers would have a lot to do with closing Seatco.

The prison was completed and ready for occupancy in July 1878. The building itself was unique for a prison in the fact that it was made of wood. It was a formidable structure, however, built of 3-inch-thick planks laid flat and spiked together at intervals of 4 to 6 inches. Five tons of iron spikes were required for the job, and they made an impregnable latticework of iron.

The main building was 100 by 150 feet with two floors and an attic workshop. The cellblock was on the ground floor and could be reached only by a stairway from inside the second floor, which had only one outside entrance.

Thirty-six cells were designed to hold a maximum of three prisoners each. The cell block was unheated, and there were no sanitary facilities other than a bucket for each cell. Each cell had a single iron-barred window 6 inches high and about a foot long. The second floor held the kitchen and dining area, a tailor and shoe shops and quarters for the guards and for an occasional female inmate. At one time an Indian woman who had killed her husband was housed with her three children in a shack in the prison compound.

By the fall of 1878 the prison housed about 30 inmates; Warden Billings was having trouble getting some sheriffs to give up their profitable prisoners. In some cases this was solved only by the threat of formal charges against the stubborn lawmen. The prison population grew as time passed and in 1883 had grown to 72. By the time the prison closed in 1887, it was close to its capacity.

Seatco prisoners were put to work cutting wood for the railroad, mining coal and working on farms. A little later they were also employed making bricks or working in a sash and door plant and in a cooper shop. There were many charges of brutal treatment and harsh working conditions, but at first people took little notice. Prisons in those days were not intended to rehabilitate. There were no visiting days, and only rarely was a clergyman allowed to hold religious services at Seatco.

Most of the complaints about inhumane treatment of prisoners revolved around the heavy leg irons they wore 24 hours a day. These irons were the invention of a Steilacoom blacksmith and were named "Ringquist Cuffs." Depending on an inmate's reputation, iron balls of up to 20 pounds were attached to the irons. Despite leather cuffs around them, the irons caused severe skin abrasions and subsequent infections. They also made almost any kind of work difficult at best and often hazardous.

As far as is known, no prisoner ever escape from the prison itself. However many escape attempts were made from work gangs, and a few were successful. More often the fleeing prisoners were caught due to the cumbersome leg irons, and a half dozen were shot down in their tracks by guards armed with .44-40 Winchester rifles.

An area in Tenino's Forest Grove Cemetery is said to hold the bodies of these and other prisoners who died in captivity. Another unmarked area on the old Mutual Mill site in Bucoda is said to be the last resting place for a few more inmates who died at Seatco.

The prisoners' treatment became a political issue in time, and legislative committees visited the prison on several occasions. Eventually the permanent leg irons were ordered replaced by restraints that could be removed at night when the inmates were in their cells. Still the prison management drew fire from newspapers and citizens groups for its treatment of inmates and the operation's allegedly large profits.

The Legislature at last in 1886 decided to build a new territorial penitentiary at Walla Walla and take the incarceration of felons out of the hands of private contractors. In May 1887 the last of the Seatco prisoners were loaded on a train and transported to the new facility far from Puget Sound and, lawmakers hoped, out of sight and out of mind.

So ended the 10-year experiment in prison contracting and the short but harsh history of Seatco prison. Ironically, the top floor of the prison building later was used for a time as a skating rink. The structure was then abandoned, fell into disrepair, and was destroyed in the Bucoda mill fire of 1912.

A few years ago the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places, but there is no sign today of its brutal history, and few people know its exact location. A model of the prison and few photos and artifacts may be seen at the Tenino Depot Museum. For the most part, however, Washington's first and only contract prison had almost faded faded from memory.

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William Billings, pioneer of 1849 / by Blanche Billings Mahlberg.

In 1877, Sheriff Billings, with J.K. Smith and Oliver Shead, built with their own funds the first territorial penitentiary at Seatco (now Bucoda) and contracted with the territory to care for all the prisoners, board, clothe and protect them during their confinement for 70 cents a day, with the privilege of using their labor as he saw fit. The building was two stories high, built of 3 x 12 planks closely spiked together to form a wall twelve inches thick. The lower story was furnished with cells. The upper story was occupied by the guards and housed the dining room and kitchen. Entrance to the building was gained only by an outside stairway. A stout stockade surrounded the building. Billings started a cooper establishment, bought eighty acres of adjacent land and developed a coal mine, and organized the Seatco Manufacturing Company for making sash, doors and blinds. Also, he again attempted to make the brick yard in Olympia profitable by employing territorial prisoners.

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The following is an excerpt from a 1981 Whitman College senior thesis:

Penology in Washington Territory, 1855-1887 : an examination into the factors which led to the establishment of the present-day penitentiary in Walla Walla / by Gerard P. Thomas, Jr.

The role of William Billings in Washington penal history remains curious. His biography reads like a typical pioneer of the West. He grew up in Vermont but became a "hand before the mast" on a whaling vessel headed toward the West Coast in the late 1840's. Billings made several attempts to prospect for gold in the Puget Sound area. Twice, the ships he was on were captured by Indians and both times Billings managed to escape. Billings was also aboard the ill-fated ship Central America when it sank, with 152 casualties. Billings was saved but the sinking of the ship supposedly helped push the United States into the Panic of 1857.

In 1860, Billings arrived in Washington Territory to stay. In that year, he became the new sheriff of Thurston County, a position he would eventually hold for 23 years. Also in 1860, Billings helped organize the Free Soil Party in Olympia with its anti-slavery platform. He tried to help a free-born black get his land claim which he had inherited. Billings also protected other minorities. He was Superintendent of the Puyallup Indian Reservation for a number of years, often living with Indians as his only neighbors. The Indians thanked Billings for his "kindly management" while Billings considered Indians "good, kind neighbors." In 1885, Billings would be the only sheriff in Western Washington to protect the Chinese during the Chinese riots. Thus, Billings was respected for he "had always stood for the right," and well liked for his "genial disposition and social temperament."

The other actions of Billings' life do not reconcile with the facts known about Seatco. Billings had stood up for the rights of blacks, Indians and Chinese but, directly abused the rights of another minority, the territorial convicts. However, in the nineteenth century many argued that convicts did not have any rights to abuse. They had committed a crime against society thus ending society's responsibility toward them. Though Billings' connection with Seatco is a blemish on an otherwise upstanding life, the penal philosophy itself, rather than the proprietors, was at fault for the injustices of Seatco penitentiary.