A rotating steel drum of pie-shaped prison cells inside a cylindrical cage. On each of three floors, there’s only one way in, one way out. Is this a pitch for a Saw trap? Nah, this is the Squirrel Cage Jail in Council Bluffs.
The Squirrel Cage Jail operated as the Pottawattamie County jail from 1885 to 1969, 84 years too long. Of 18 rotary jails ever built in the U.S., only three are still standing: A one-story jail in Gallatin, Missouri; a two-story jail in Crawfordsville, Indiana, which was the first rotary jail ever built and the only one that still turns today; and the Pottawattamie County Squirrel Cage Jail — the only three-story rotary jail ever built. All three nightmarish prison whirligigs have been preserved as museums.
The Squirrel Cage in Council Bluffs is owned and operated by the Pottawattamie County Historical Society. These days, they do elementary school field trips and let kids take pictures in solitary — which, by the way, is a 2’-by-2’ metal closet.
As if caging human beings wasn’t already depraved enough, William Brown and Benjamin Haugh of Indianapolis, Indiana patented their carceral carousel in July of 1881. In their own words, “The object of our invention is to produce a jail in which prisoners can be controlled without the necessity of a personal contact between them and the jailer.”
The following year, galvanized by this revolutionary (in the worst sense) design, the Pottawattamie County Board of Supervisors commissioned architects Edmond Eckel and George Mann to build a rotary jail in Council Bluffs. Construction began in 1885 and ended five months later. The congenial Victorian exterior is a stark contrast to the cold metal cell block inside, a literal and metaphorical façade for the horror within.
The rotary jail, also nicknamed a lazy Susan, was lauded as escape-proof. However, delinquent ingenuity never fails to impress. Myriad escape attempts were made through the ceiling, walls, toilet system, and once, through the front door. In 1951, an inmate dove headfirst through a front-office window.
One group of escapees even left a note hoping their jailbreak would convince the county to build a new jail — no wonder, given the unparalleled brutality of the cage. Limbs often got caught up in the bars while the cell-block was turning. One legendary jailbird jammed the mechanism with his prosthetic wooden leg to piss off the jailer. Some people stuck arms out on purpose for a chance at the relative luxury of the infirmary.
During the jail’s eight-decade run, it was condemned 22 times. And kept running.
First built with no power, no water and no heat except buckets of coal, it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Not every cell had window access, depending on where it fell in the rotation. The cell-block, weighing 90,000 pounds when it was empty, was rotated by hand crank, and because it was built on a water table, the gears often fell out of alignment. The final wrench in the cog of the machine came in 1960 when someone died in their cell and their body couldn’t be retrieved for two days because the turning mechanism was broken. Even though the jail quit turning, it didn’t close for good for another nine years.
My fascination with this morbid bit of Iowa history began in third grade, when I took a field trip to the jail as part of a unit on Council Bluffs Historical Landmarks. In my reminiscing, one thing stood out to me as an appropriately sardonic conclusion to the story: my clearest memory from that day is looking up to see a prop arm sticking through the cell bars.
A mob descends
In the summer of 1932, a 1,000-person march of striking farmers made their way to Council Bluffs to attempt a jailbreak of the “escape-proof” Squirrel Cage. Though they didn’t actually pull it off — or even make it to town before being intercepted by the mayor — the story is worth knowing and the details are as disorderly as you might expect.
In the midst of the Great Depression, the Iowa Farmer’s Union initiated the Farmer’s Holiday: a strike calling attention to the financial woes of U.S. farmers by withholding wares and refusing to buy. The movement spread through Iowa and into neighboring states, but scabs do what scabs do, and aside from gaining media attention, the effectiveness of the strike was questionable at best. So, the striking farmers in Sioux City, Council Bluffs and elsewhere turned to direct action.
With torn-down telephone poles, hay bales, makeshift road spikes and picket lines, the protesters blockaded all roads into CB and stood guard with baseball bats to keep scabs from bringing their goods to town. When the blockade on Highway 34 refused a deputy’s orders to stand down, Sheriff Lainson hired 98 “special” deputies in an effort to break the road block. He promised to “fight it out if it took 5,000 deputies.” Orders were to lock up every person found picketing on charges of “unlawful assembly.”
Lock ’em up Lainson did, as he crammed 50 to 60 farmers into a jail that could hardly hold them. He said, “If the Pottawattamie County Jail bulges with picketers, it’ll just have to bulge. I’m going to see that law and order are maintained.”
Riotous crowds were already forming around the Squirrel Cage, but soon rumors spread of 1,000 men on their way to bust the farmers out. Lainson armed his new hires with submachine and riot guns, stating they would handle a mobbing “in the best possible manner.” He instructed his deputies to shoot to kill.
With the number of marchers at the Highway 34 blockade rising, an “emergency peace conference” was put on by the Chamber of Commerce, in which a few strikers negotiated with Mayor John Myrtue, the sheriff, and the chief of police. The delegation of farmers agreed to disperse under the condition that the sheriff support a small group of “peaceful” protesters. A handful of wealthy farmers raised enough money for bail, and the mayor talked down the out-of-towners.
Despite high tensions, the only casualty of the whole affair was a special deputy with three days of service, killed when a riot gun accidentally discharged during a weapons test.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s December 2024 issue.
