A Note From Cottonwood Corners
News Staff
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
A law was enacted by the Legislature of 1870 – 71, designating the penitentiary at Fort Madison, Iowa, as the official penitentiary of the Territory of Dakota. The United States had confined the first Dakota convicts in the United States prison at Detroit, and in some instances at Fort Madison, but the territory had had no occasion for a penitentiary until Frank Sullivan was convicted of horse stealing in the Territorial Court at Yankton in October, 1870. He was sentenced by Chief Justice French to three years’ hard labor in the “Iowa state prison at Fort Madison.”