WANTED: $50 REWARD. “Slick” Willie Sutton’s mug shot appeared on wanted posters after his escape from Eastern State Penitentiary. Sutton and eleven other men escaped through a tunnel on April 3, 1945. All were eventually recaptured. From the Eastern State Penitentiary Archives.

Visitors in cathedral-like corridor of Cellblock 7, the site of the doomed 1945 tunnel escape. Photo Drew Simcox.

Dramatic tours to the site of the tunnel and rare artifacts displayed

(Philadelphia, June 2004): Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site will present a weekend of tours into the ruined south-west corner of the Penitentiary, Saturday and Sunday, June 26th and 27th. The tours will take the public to Cellblock Seven, Cell 68, the site of the doomed 1945 tunnel escape. The cellblock will not be open to the public at any other time this year.

Actor William Rayhill, who portrayed tunnel-designer Clarence Klinedinst in Iron Age Theater’s production Tunnel at the Penitentiary, will lead the groups. Rayhill will recreate his roll for these tours, describing in detail the eighteen months that the prisoners spent constructing the tunnel.

The tours will leave at 11:30, 12:30, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30 and 4:30 each day. The tours to the tunnel site are free after admission to the historic site.

Flamboyant bank robber and escape artist “Slick” Willie Sutton--who escaped through the tunnel and later falsely claimed credit for its design--would have turned 102 during this weekend. The historic site staff will commemorate the occasion by displaying photographs and rare documents related to the 1945 tunnel escape. This collection of rare artifacts will be displayed at the cell occupied by Willie Sutton at the time of the escape.

They include:

*Hand drawn illustrations of the tunnel, produced by the administration immediately following the escape;
*Reports from the guards who oversaw the cellblock on the day of the escape;
*Willie Sutton’s mug shot and wanted poster; and
*Transcripts from interviews with the inmates during the follow-up investigation.

Although the tunnel was filled with ash from the prison incinerator in 1945, throughout the weekend, the path of the tunnel will be marked on the pavement, and its exit point at 22nd Street and Fairmount Avenue will be identified with a marker.

The real tunnel escapees suffered an unfortunate fate: all twelve inmates were captured and returned to the Penitentiary, most within minutes of emerging from the tunnel.

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