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McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary, Washington The McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary was on an island in the southern portion of Puget Sound 10 miles southwest of Tacoma. The island was originally settled in the late 1800s. When the Federal Penitentiary was built in the 1920s and 1930s, it incorporated some of the original buildings. For instance, the chaplain's house was originally a settler's house. If not for the fences and guard towers, the penitentiary might have resembled a small town: in addition to cell houses, it included a boat dock, a ferry landing, a boathouse, ship sheds, a dry dock, a hospital, officers' quarters, bachelor officers' quarters, a warden's house, automobile garages, a library, a reservoir, a utility building, a cannery, warehouses, a workshop, a school for employees' children, a machine shop, farms, a farm dormitory, a farm kitchen, a cattle ranch, and a poultry farm (Figures 18.18-18.21).
Younger draft resisters from the Heart Mountain Relocation Center were incarcerated at McNeil Island. Gordon Hirabayashi was also incarcerated here, along with numerous other conscientious objectors, including Jehovah's Witnesses. Like the Catalina Honor Camp, McNeil Island was a work prison, and inmates held a variety of jobs, including canning fish, clearing land, and farming. Today McNeil Island is a medium-security state correctional facility housing about 1,000 male inmates.
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