Qualla: Oklahoma State Penitentiary

Oklahoma State Penitentiary: Introduction

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Charles Duggar, CC BY-SA 2.0. Everyone in McAlester, Oklahoma, called it Big Mac. For decades, the nickname carried a double edge -- part grudging local landmark, part dark joke about the maximum-security prison that had dominated the town since 1908. The Oklahoma State Penitentiary arrived that year when a reformer named Kate Barnard visited the Kansas state prison at Lansing, where Oklahoma's inmates had been sent during territorial days, and was horrified to find them forced to work in the mines. Within two months of her report, Governor Charles N. Haskell sent two trainloads of fifty prisoners each to McAlester. Big Mac was born.

Image: Charles Duggar | CC BY-SA 2.0

Oklahoma State Penitentiary: From Territorial Lockup to Stone Walls

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. The prison grew quickly from its makeshift beginnings. The F Cellhouse went up in 1935, and the New Cellhouse followed. A shoe manufacturing plant and tailor shop replaced the mine labor Barnard had banned, giving inmates work that at least produced something beyond broken backs....

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Oklahoma State Penitentiary: Three Days of Fire

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. By 1970, Big Mac had become a pressure cooker. Experts described Oklahoma's prison system as one of the most inefficient, archaic, and corrupt in the country. The State Penitentiary was at 219 percent capacity. Raw sewage backed up into cells. Facilities remained racially segrega...

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Oklahoma State Penitentiary: Old Sparky and the Long Walk

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. Between 1915 and 2014, Oklahoma executed 192 men and 3 women at Big Mac. The state employed three methods over that span: hanging, electrocution, and lethal injection. The electric chair, known as Old Sparky, performed eighty-two executions before its last use in 1966. Lethal inj...

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Oklahoma State Penitentiary: The Prison Rodeo

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. For nearly seven decades, Big Mac hosted something no other prison in America could match. Starting in 1940, the Oklahoma State Penitentiary staged a prison rodeo -- a two-day event each August that became a joint venture between the city of McAlester and the Department of Correc...

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