March "Archives treasures" contender #2: Foiled prison break

Yesterday, we provided you with information regarding the Women’s Club of Olympia. Our second treasure from the State Archives is an image of a cell block within the Walla Walla Penitentiary in the 1890s. In July of 1919, Henry Jones, who held up the Bank of Bickleton on December 22, 1916, made a daring attempt to escape from the Walla Walla Penitentiary but failed when he couldn’t scale the outer wall. Jones was arrested after a western style stick-up of the Bank of Bickleton in Klickitat County. During the robbery, he held the two customers, clerk, and cashier at gun point, locked them into a room, and rode away on horseback. Roughly 30 miles from the bank, a posse of riders came upon his tired horse and a large portion of the $4,000 loot. The men later captured the bandana-faced criminal and recovered the rest of the stolen money. Jones was originally sentenced with five years in the penitentiary with the possibility of parole.