Historic Walker County

that had come to symbolize much that was
wrong with the prison system at the turn of the
twentieth century. Instituted in 1871, convict
lease was a profitable practice that allowed the
state government to raise revenue for poorly
funded, overcrowded prisons by leasing
prisoners to work for private individuals. The
leasing of convicts proved fruitful as it lessened
the number of prisoners who needed to be
housed in Huntsville and “supplied the penal
system with substantial financial support by
providing cheap labor and producing goods for
sale.” 63 In the fall of 1908, however, Reverend
Jake Hodges, a chaplain at the Huntsville
Penitentiary, provided a first-hand account of
the savage brutality and sexual abuse he had
witnessed in the convict leasing program to
George Briggs, a progressive young reporter
with the San Antonio Express. Briggs’s brilliant
exposé condemning the prison system finally
forced Texas Governor Thomas M. Campbell to
call for a “searching, sweeping, and effective”
probe into convict leasing. The investigation
turned up a host of problems, including
financial corruption, physical abuse, and
appalling living conditions for prisoners. Moved
by the report, Campbell signed a law that ended
the convict lease system on September 17,
1910, and two years later all existing lease
contracts were canceled so that prisoners could
return to state control. 64
E D U C A T I O N A L
D E V E L O P M E N T
Progressive Era reformers had a dramatic
impact on education in Walker County. At Sam
Houston Normal Institute, the area’s largest
educational institution, President Henry Carr
Pritchett oversaw a growing campus and the
addition of a beautiful new Peabody Library.
Opened in 1902, the library made Sam Houston
the first institution of higher education in Texas
to have an individual building devoted solely
for library purposes. Harry Fishburne Estill
replaced Pritchett at the helm of Sam Houston
Normal in 1908 and followed in his
predecessor’s footsteps, expanding the
university on several fronts. By 1911,
coursework was expanded from two years to
four years giving the institution junior college
status. In accordance with the growing city of
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