Turkey Pete Cell Number 1
At age forty, Paul "Turkey Pete" Eitner was sentenced to life in prison for two murders in 1918. As a model prisoner, he was assigned to tend the prison turkeys. But as the years passed, reality slipped away from him. One day a man stopped to admire the turkeys, and Eitner sold the man the entire prison flock for 25 cents each. This ended Eitner's farming days, but marked the beginning of a new career as an "entrepreneur and philanthropist".
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The prison administration humored Eitner and allowed inmates to print him checks in the prison print shop. |
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He "purchased" the prison and proceeded to run it. He paid all the prison expenses and wrote checks to the guards for their salaries. |
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He saved Brazil's coffee crop, sold pink alligators, purchased alfalfa seed from Poncho Villa, sold grasshopper legs to Fidel Castro, and sold ships to the Navy. |
When Turkey Pete died in 1967 at age 89, his cell was retired and converted into a barbershop. His funeral was the only one ever held within the walls of the prison.