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Suitable for hanging: Chicago's gallows sold
Fri Dec 8, 8:14 AM ET
Escaped convict "Terrible" Tommy O'Connor can rest a little easier.
The warped wooden gallows used more than a century ago to hang convicts in Chicago, beginning with those condemned for the May 4, 1886, Haymarket Square riot, has been bought at auction by Ripley's Believe It or Not museums for $68,000, Mastro Auctions said on Thursday.
Between 1887 and 1927, 86 men were hanged from the gallows built to execute those convicted of inciting the violence at the labor rally in which eight policemen died. Four of the supposed conspirators were hanged from the gallows.
The contraption had been kept disassembled in the basement of Chicago's criminal courts building awaiting the recapture of cop killer O'Connor, who was 31 when he escaped a few days before his scheduled execution in 1921.
O'Connor's outstanding sentence for killing a policeman meant the gallows survived even after hanging was abolished as a method of execution.
A judge finally ordered the gallows removed from the courthouse in 1977, figuring O'Connor was dead, and it was sold to a theme park near Chicago. The park operator recently deemed the gallows too macabre for his display of Western memorabilia, and offered it for sale.
Mastro Auctions said Ripley's has not yet decided where to display the gallows, which has a 20-foot-long (6-metre-long) floorboard topped by a crossbar 15 feet above the floor.
Fri Dec 8, 8:14 AM ET
Escaped convict "Terrible" Tommy O'Connor can rest a little easier.
The warped wooden gallows used more than a century ago to hang convicts in Chicago, beginning with those condemned for the May 4, 1886, Haymarket Square riot, has been bought at auction by Ripley's Believe It or Not museums for $68,000, Mastro Auctions said on Thursday.
Between 1887 and 1927, 86 men were hanged from the gallows built to execute those convicted of inciting the violence at the labor rally in which eight policemen died. Four of the supposed conspirators were hanged from the gallows.
The contraption had been kept disassembled in the basement of Chicago's criminal courts building awaiting the recapture of cop killer O'Connor, who was 31 when he escaped a few days before his scheduled execution in 1921.
O'Connor's outstanding sentence for killing a policeman meant the gallows survived even after hanging was abolished as a method of execution.
A judge finally ordered the gallows removed from the courthouse in 1977, figuring O'Connor was dead, and it was sold to a theme park near Chicago. The park operator recently deemed the gallows too macabre for his display of Western memorabilia, and offered it for sale.
Mastro Auctions said Ripley's has not yet decided where to display the gallows, which has a 20-foot-long (6-metre-long) floorboard topped by a crossbar 15 feet above the floor.
