There’s a golf course there now, but Anchorage prisoners used to farm at Russian Jack Springs Park
Immediately before World War II, the area we call Russian Jack Springs Park was comprised of the Peter Toloff and Nicholas Darlopaulos homesteads. Today, they are primarily remembered for allowing “Russian Jack” Jacob Marunenko to live on their land. In short, “Russian Jack” was a Russian immigrant who abandoned his family in Russia, bootlegged and killed a man in Anchorage, and
became the area’s namesake.
In 1943, the U.S. Army seized the land for possible expansion and compensated the former homesteaders $4,300, roughly $64,000 in 2020. In 1948, the city of Anchorage bought the land for $16,000, roughly $172,000 in 2020. At the time, the primary appeal of the land was its spring, a potential water source for the city. The spring proved insufficient, but the land remained reserved for future use.
The city’s first significant use of the land occurred
in 1951 with the construction of a prison farm meant to alleviate overcrowding in the city jail. The prison farm stood in stark contrast to the second significant use of the land, a day camp founded in 1952 by local Girl Scouts pioneer, Marjory Bailey.
The prison farm initially consisted of three Quonset huts that collectively housed an average of 40 inmates. The site grew to include several wooden buildings, a dog pound, and a warehouse for long-term city storage.
Prisoners convicted of misdemeanors, primarily alcohol-related, were eligible for the farm. Anchorage judges during the 1950s began responding to charges of public drunkenness with 30- to 90-day farm sentences instead of the previously typical day or two jail stint. During what seems to have been an especially well-lubricated 1953 Memorial Day weekend, Anchorage police arrested 53 for drunkenness and vagrancy, requiring a special court session to separate those who could be sentenced to the farm.
The prisoners’ work included growing produce, cutting firewood and serving as labor throughout the city. The 26-acre farm became self-sufficient, productive enough that its crops were a crucial complement to the budget of the cash-strapped city prison. For September 1960, the prison farm was the city’s department of the month. In 1963, the prison provided 93,000 meals. However, the prison was only budgeted $18,000 ($150,000 in 2020) for meals, towels, medicine, first aid supplies, utensils, fertilizer, canning supplies, and coveralls. Ignoring the other costs, that’s 19 cents, about $1.60 in 2020, per meal. Every inmate meal included some of the potatoes, peas, cabbage, beets, and carrots grown at the farm.
Many Anchorage residents viewed
the prison farm as a vacation resort for drunks. Longtime reporter Mike Dunham recalled:
“We even had people come into the police station, some of these people that were homeless and down and out and so forth, sayin’ ‘I wanna go to the farm.' They’d come in and ask. And I can remember one case, this guy came in, we all knew him. And it was getting towards fall, it was getting a little cold outside, and he says ‘I wanna go to the farm,’ and the officer told him, ‘Well, y’know, you haven’t done anything wrong.’ So he picked up the cash register off the counter, slammed it onto the floor, and he says, 'Now can I go to the farm?’ [laughs] Well, he did! He went to the farm.”
jaywalking is an arrest able offence? and then while taking him to the ground now he's got your gun? that was terribly handled by both of those cops. but yet again, jaywalking and other BS "crimes" (such as mask mandates *ahem*) once again fall hardest on the lowest of society.
