On May 30, 1854, Pres. Franklin Pierce signed the hotly contested Kansas-Nebraska Act. Before the ink was dry, squatters settled on the 322-acre plot of land bounded by the Fort Leavenworth Military R
On March 17, 1827, Col. Henry Leavenworth received orders from Washington. Along with four companies of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, he departed from the Jefferson Barracks at St. Louis, traveled up the
On July 1, 1895, under the direction of warden James French, the first federal prison was born. That same year, St. Louis architects Eames and Young went to work drawing up plans for an institution th
On December 11, 1931, chaos erupted behind Leavenworth's limestone penitentiary walls as seven desperate men put months of planning into action. Aided by notorious gangsters Frank Nash, George "Machin
