1887 Huntsville Texas Penitentiary THOMAS GOREE Superintendent PRISON LETTERHEAD

Description

PLEASE READ BEFORE BUYING:
I sell ONLY ORIGINAL items and NOT ANY reproductions.
This sale is for ONE
advertising
LETTERHEAD
from the office of
TH
O
MAS J. G
O
REE ,
The
SUPERINTENDENT
of
STATE PENITENTIARIES
in
HUNT
$
VILLE,  TEXA
$
during the year
1887.
This letter was hand written & signed
by
Thos. J. Goree .
CONTENT of this letter:  Letter is addressed to
the Honorable George C. Pendleton in Belton, Texas.   Letter mentions " GUS THOMPSON " from BeLL County is now on the farm of Nepis ? Rodgers & Hill in Brazos County, Texas.  He can be addressed in care of Sergeant P. M. Hicks- Allen favor ? Brazos County.  His time will expire with commutation in March 1888."  Very truly yours, Thos. J. Goree, Supt.
Names listed at the top are:
Thos. J. Goree as Superintendent of Penitentiaries.. Huntsville, TX.
W. G. Parish as Financial Agent of Penitentiaries...
Huntsville, TX.
J. T. Dickson as Secretary Penitentiary Board.... Austin, TX.
Ben E. McCulloch as Assistant Superintendent Hunsville Penitentiary in Hunstville, TX.
F. P. O'Briend Assistant Superintendent Rusk Penitentiary.. Rusk, TX.
W. W. Merritt as Inspetor Convict Camps... McKinney, TX.
B. W. Brown as Inspector Convict Camps... Longview, TX.
CONDITION:
The "EBAY ITEM" thing is just a loose piece of paper and is not attached to the letterhead.  Normal letter folds, file holes at top, good condition.  SOLD AS IS.
Letterhead is approximately
6" X 9 1/2"
in size.
SOME HISTORICAL FACTS ON THE THOS. J. GOREE NAME:
The
Thomas Goree Unit
(
GR
) is a
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
men's prison, located in
Huntsville, Texas
, 4 miles (6.4 km) miles south of downtown Huntsville on
Texas State Highway 75
South. The Goree Unit is located within Region I.
First opened in 1911, it served as the only women's correctional facility in Texas until 1982, after the women were moved to state prisons in
Gatesville
. For a period Goree held the state's sole female death row inmate, until her conviction was changed to a non-death row offense.
The unit was named after Major Thomas J. Goree, who, in the late 19th century, served as a prison superintendent.
The unit was first established in 1907,
and it opened in 1911 as the
Goree State Farm for Women
, a women's prison. The facility had separate portions for White and African-American women. White and Hispanic women worked in the garment factory, while Black women worked in the fields.
In the 1930s Goree included the main building, separate sets of dormitories for black and white prisoners, an orchard, a cannery, a barn, crop fields, a hen house, and a cemetery for prisoners who had not been taken by surviving relatives. The dormitories had bars bolted onto the windows. During that decade, 150 prisoners resided at Goree. The Goree All Girl String Band, a group of prisoners from the unit, performed in the 1940s.
Goree, within a short driving distance from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice headquarters, had been rebuilt and expanded during the administrations of O. B. Ellis and George Beto. Robert Perkinson, author of
Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire
, said that Goree's main building "showcases a bygone nod to rehabilitation." The main building has dormitories which face gardens. Instead of bars, the residential rooms use decorative latticework. A visitor stated that Goree appeared "more or less like a college dormitory."
On one occasion Goree held a female death row prisoner, Mary Anderson, Texas Department of Corrections (TDC)# 607. Anderson was sentenced to death on October 31, 1978,
but her death sentence was reversed in 1982.
The sentence was changed to murder and Anderson, who received a 50-year sentence, became TDC#285253. She was paroled on January 14, 1991.
In the 1980s the state moved women prisoners to facilities in Gatesville.  In 1982 Goree was converted into a men's prison. The prison authorities placed wire mesh on the dormitory windows. Prisoners are not permitted to be in the gardens. The prison gained a single perimeter fence with concertina wire; previously the area was unfenced.
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and
GOOD LUCK TO YOU.