'The scaffold stands eight feet above the ground. Some six years later, on September 7, 1881, a reporter from the Fort Smith Elevator visited the garrison and described the execution machinery as follows: By a movement of this lever back, the trigger bar which holds the trap in position is released and the doors drop down.' To this beam about the middle is secured an iron trigger bar about three feet long, well secured on the facing of the platform floor. These are held in place when brought up by a stout beam of oak, extending in the direction of the gallows' beam on which rest two arms firmly fastened to one flap of the door below. The trap extends across the breadth of the platform, and consists of two pieces strongly hinged to the flooring of the platform so that they form a connection in the nature of a double door when closed from below. The distance between the supporting posts is about twelve feet, giving nearly two feet space for the fall of each victim. The platform is about seven feet from the ground. The cross-beam is a stout stick of hewed oak, supported on two upright posts, very strongly braced. 'The scaffold upon which they will be executed has been erected at the south side of the old parade ground, right against the front of the old magazine. Louis Republican of Septemthis description of the gallows: Over this about 10 feet higher, framed on upright posts and firmly braced, is a long rope beam with six ropes attached.'Īnother journalist wrote in the St. In the jail yard in front of and close up to the old magazine is a strong platform about 20 feet square and 12 feet high, with a long trap door in the floor, swung on iron hinges for the On September 3, 1875, an article in the Independent of Fort Smith described as follows: The 1873 gallows were described several times by various reporters. This was once a bomb-proof magazine, but the top is now off and cavities in the masonry show where the big timber rested that supported the heavy roof of rock and earth.' In September 1875, at the first execution carried out after Judge Parker’s arrival in Fort Smith, an extra edition of the Independent described the building and area: 'In one corner of this wall stands an old pentagon-shaped building, with iron doors and pointed roof, built of solid masonry….'īy 1896, years of disuse had taken their toll, and a traveler reported that 'the scaffold is on a line with the wall, and beyond is a grotto of heavy stone masonry 50 feet in diameter. used for storage of powder belonging to citizens. Pentagonal (Magazine) Stone 2 faces 30 ft.

In October of 1873, after the final closure of Fort Smith by the army, three commissioners appointed by the Secretary of Interior to appraise the buildings of the fort described the structure as follows:

It was against the face of this structure that the two successive gallows were constructed. In September of 1846, Colonel Arbuckle negotiated a contract which converted the southern blockhouse foundation (bastion #3) into a very sturdy magazine for the storage of munitions. The Southwestern bastion (#2) was later crowned with a very similar structure housing the quartermaster warehouse. Therefore the foundations of bastion #1 (Northwestern corner) were modified and a two-story stone commissary warehouse constructed upon them. When the fort's role was changed in the 1840s from that of a frontier defense to a supply depot it was decided to utilize these sturdy foundations for more practical structures. Each of the corners was to have been originally crowned with a blockhouse or bastion. The area in which the gallows stood was the southwestern corner of the five-sided fort. Jailer has received orders to erect the gallows for the execution of prisoners sentenced to be hung here shortly.' The article also noted 'the fatal structure may already be seen going up near the old powder magazine just inside the garrison walls.' The only other known description of the location of the first gallows was published in the New Era of August 20, 1873, which placed the scaffold 'at the opposite end of the grounds near the magazine.' The Fort Smith Weekly New Era of August 6, 1873, reported that 'Captain C. The gallows proper had their beginning in early August of 1873.

Bastion in a sentence