Historical Places: The Gallows & The Old Natchitoches Courthouse, Natchitoches Parish Louisiana Source: The Alexandria Daily Town Talk, October 30, 1994, article by Robin Miller, Staff Reporter Submitted by: Gaytha Thompson ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** A Picture of the Old Courthouse is on the with this article. The caption reads: Records show that hanging never took place in Natchitoches's Old Courthouse but in the jail that once stood behind the building. A double decked scaffolding stood on the third floor of the jail. Public hangings also took place outside the courthouse A Picture of the Spiral Staircase is also shown with the following caption reads: Legend says that the condemned were led up this spiral staircase in Natchitoches' Old Courthouse to a trapdoor that once opened through the floor on the third story. THE GALLOWS The trapdoors are welded shut. The spiral staircase leads only to a battered, empty room. Still, there's no way to keep from wondering: What just what were the condemned thinking as they approached these places? What last-minute picturers were being committed to last bits of memory by the mind's eye? I could have been the immediate terror of imagining what was about to happen. Free-falling 7 feet or so only to come to a sudden stop so sudden, in fact, that it ends in a single jerk of a rope. Then again, there might have been hope. Something like the "Twilight Zone" episode "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bride," were there is no finality in the rope. The segment above the noose breaks during the process, allowing the condemned a miraculous escape home to family. In the end, however, even that dream becomes a nightmare because it's just that a dream. The rope pops, and the hanging takes place as scheduled. Rope. Hanging. Such archaic words, almost primitive. But there's really no use in working the imagination further. The trapdoors in the Rapides Parish Courthouse have long been welded shut, and there is no place for a falling rope atop the spiral stairs in Natchitoches's Old Courthouse. The clincher: Condemned never tasted death in either of these chambers. Yet existing gallows still conjure thoughts of horror. They created a few tales, too. OLD COURTHOUSE The laugh is skeptical, but in good humor. Ginny Tobin has her doubts. "People have said these are the old gallows, but I really don't think they are," she says. She stands before a black, metal, spiral staircase leading to the only room on the Old Natchitoches Courthouse's third floor. She and fellow worker Harold Russell are used to this discussion, these questions. Their primary job is volunteering time to the Natchitoches Parish Genealogical Library on the second floor, but they sometimes find themselves acting as tour guides. "There was supposedly a trapdoor there,: Mrs. Tobin continues, pointing to the solid ceiling. "I don't think there was, but again, some people believe it." A local clergyman certainly believes in what has now become a legend of sorts. He brought a group of tourists to the Old Courthouse, venturing to the second floor to share the tale. "If he says it happened, well, it might have," Mrs. Tobin says, shrugging. "I just don't know." Russell also has his doubts but isn't shy about taking the lead up the stairs to show what condemns' last earthly sights may have been. There isn't much large windows, bricked walls peeping through plaster and a wooden floor, still with no signs of there ever being a trap door. Mrs. Tobin has heard some speculation that the gallows once were located where the serene courtyard now separates the Old Courthouse from the new. James Sompayrec Jones Jr. of San Antonio, Texas, has a memory of his own. It came back to him while researching. Jones' directions are on target as Natchitoches was his home town for many years. Brother Dub Jones, ow of Alexandria was with him at the time. "Dub's younger than me, so I don't know how much of this he would remember." Jones says, laughing. "But I know there was a scaffolding, and people were all around it. My dad made us get back in the truck, then he went back and watched." It was well into the 20th century, but public executions were still common. The late Ron Wikberg, in his and Wilbert Rideau's 1991 book Life Sentences, states that Louisiana's condemned met the state executioner at the gallows until 1940. "The last official hanging in Louisiana took place in Caldwell Parish on March 7, 1940, when four men were executed for the murder of Frank Gartman, following their escape from an Arkansas prison," Wikberg wrote. "A Monroe radio station was permitted to cover the event live, and as a large crowd gathered around the Columbia courthouse, William Meharg, William Landers, William Heard and Floyd Boyce were hanged, in that order." This account, along with Jones' recollection, is proof enough that executions weren't private as they are today, but that doesn't solve the spiral staircase puzzle. Delving further into the Louisiana Room's archives does. Photographs of the Old Courthouse are plentiful. It hasn't changed since first built in 1896. What is different is the structure standing behind it. Not the new courthouse but a three story gothic structure. The Old Jail.