Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
Sepia photograph of a brick penitentiary building with tall windows, a tall tower and trees in front, seen from the street.
Open the full imageJPG, 1800 × 1386 px, 0.4 MB

Exterior of Lewisburg Penitentiary, 9 October 1947 (National Archives)

Bureau of Prisons photograph dated 9 October 1947 of the exterior of the United States Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: a brick building with a tall tower. The catalog's caption reads "Lewisburg Letter."

Date
1947-10-09
Kind
photograph
Source
National Archives Catalog
Retrieved
2026-10-12
NAID
505633614
Rights
A Bureau of Prisons photograph, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. Series "Photographs Illustrating the Facilities and Activities of the Bureau of Prisons" (NAID 532602), Records of the Bureau of Prisons (Record Group 129). The National Archives catalog marks use and access "Unrestricted." The copy stored here is an 1,800-pixel downsample of the catalog's digital object (the catalog's file is a TIFF of about 67 MB).

The catalog gives the caption as “Lewisburg Letter.” and the date as 9 October 1947. The photograph shows the exterior of the penitentiary: a brick building with tall windows and a tall tower, with trees in front. The local identifier, taken from the image file name, is 129-G-78-10.

The Bureau of Prisons says USP Lewisburg opened in 1932 as the first penitentiary built by the Bureau (timeline). The warden’s notebook page for Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson prints “Trans. to Lewisburg 1-26-63.” No other inmate record filed in this archive places a man at Lewisburg.

itemPhotographs Illustrating the Facilities and Activities of the Bureau of Prisons (National Archives series)National Archives series of photographs of federal prisons and camps, mostly from about 1930: buildings, living conditions, dining, recreation and custody procedures. Three items from it are filed here.itemFederal Bureau of Prisons: Historical Information (agency overview)The Bureau of Prisons' historical overview: the Three Prisons Act of 1891, the Act of 14 May 1930 that created the Bureau, 14 facilities by the end of 1930, and USP Lewisburg opening in 1932 as the first penitentiary the Bureau built.itemFederal Bureau of Prisons: Historical Information, TimelineThe Bureau of Prisons' timeline entries for the Three Prisons Act (1891), the Bureau's founding and first Director (1930), USP Lewisburg (1932), USP Alcatraz as the first maximum security prison (1934) and James V. Bennett (1937).itemAlcatraz warden's notebook page for Ellsworth Raymond "Bumpy" Johnson, No. 1117Bureau of Prisons notebook page with the identification photograph of Ellsworth Johnson, received at Alcatraz from Leavenworth on 14 April 1954 under a 15-year narcotics sentence from the Southern District of New York. A copy is stored here.