From the Richmond Dispatch, 4/17/1889

LIBBY PRISON REMOVAL.
The Work to Be Commenced in a Few Days.

Mr. Louis Rawlings, of Rawlings & Rose, the agents who negotiated the sale of the Libby-Prison property, stated yesterday that the purchasers have leased a site in Chicago for the building, have dug the foundation, and in four or five days the work of tearing down and removing the old prison will begin.

THE NEW SITE.

The building is to be re-erected on a lot on Wabash avenue between Fourteenth and Fifteenth streets. It is 286x166 feet and has been leased for a term of ninety-nine years at $7,000 per annum. Every stone, brick, timber, and nail of the present building will, as far as possible, be used in its former place in rebuilding the structure.

THE WORK.

Messrs. Woodward & Crilly, of Chicago, have secured the entire contract, which includes tearing down, packing on cars, railroad, and other transportation and rebuilding.

They have made arrangements with the Chesapeake and Ohio Company for the transportation. When the lot is cleared it will be sold at auction by Rawlings & Rose unless the city desires to secure it for a public park, in which case it will be given to the city by the owners under certain conditions.

A SHOW.

Since the Libby has been fenced in and a fee charged for admission to it the owners have realized about $50 per week from curious visitors – northern people mostly.

The city will be asked to give leave for the erection of a derrick in Dock street to assist in loading the material on trains; if it refuses the derrick will be put in the building.

Cars can be loaded at the Dock-street doors of the prison and thence run to Chicago.

Page last updated on 01/15/2008