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America's Excellent Electric Chairs
Sizzlin'! Just don't get too fried before you visit America's Glamorous Gas Chambers, too!
- New Mexico's First and Only Electric Chair
- Electric Chair Wired for Fun
- NJ's Electric Chair
- Old Sparky, Lone Star of Texas
- Sing Sing Replica Chair -- built by prisoners!
- Souped-up Sing Sing chair, Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum
New Mexico's First and Only Electric Chair
This museum actually doesn't have anything to do with the Santa Fe Trail; its just another collection of dull local junk. "We named it the Sante Fe Trail Museum because the Trail runs close to Springer," explained Bertha Chavez, the museum's curator. However, the museum does have two displays of note: New Mexico's first and only electric chair (complete with a battered glamour mannequin about to be fried) and a "shoe of a giant" -- a brown wingtip that once belonged to Robert Wadlow, the world's tallest man. How did that get out here?
Address: 614 Maxwell Ave., Springer, NM [Show Map]
Directions: At the Santa Fe Trail Museum. East side of Maxwell Ave., two blocks north of the intersection of US 56/412.
Hours: Memorial Day - Labor Day - 9 am to 4 pm. (Call to verify)
Phone: 505-483-5554
Electric Chair Wired For Fun
American Police Center & Museum, Chicago, Illinois "Feel
the effect of sitting in an electric chair." Used in the movie "Lepke," it's an exact replica of the Illinois State Penitentiary chair. People who sit
on its pressure sensitive seat are given a mild shock. "Visitors
get a real charge out of it," the museum's director told us. Is it a
popular exhibit? "You wouldn't believe! Sometimes that zapping all day
drives me crazy."
Update: Museum reported closed.
Old Sparky: Lone Star of Texas
Huntsville, Texas
Opened in 1989, the Texas Prison Museum offers a display of makeshift weapons, treasures like Clyde Barrow's carbine, a mock jail cell, and "Old Sparky", the electric chair that fried 361 men between 1924 and 1964. Art and crafts created by inmates are displayed. Of particular interest: "Old Sparky" was hand-made by some incarcerated craftsmen, and was built sturdily enough to outlive all its occupants and a stint in the prison dump. It was recovered, and donated to the museum. The entire collection, once housed in a cramped old bank building, moved in late 2002 to a new 10,000 square foot facility off I-45 northwest of Huntsville, near the Wynne Prison Unit.
Address: 491 State Hwy. 75 North, Huntsville, TX [Show Map]
Directions: I-45 exit 118. The museum is on the frontage road, east side.
Hours: May-Oct M-Sa 10-6 Su noon-5; Oct-May M-Sa 10-5 Su noon-5 (Call to verify)
Phone: 936-295-2155
