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• 1 media/PH20_Eldora Escapees.jpg 2023-02-17T19:09:27+00:00 Eldora Escapees 11 plain 2025-03-14T20:46:07+00:00 Duane Parsons held his breath and tried to remain still as he lay between dirt rows in a field in Mason City, Iowa. His heartbeat quickened at the sound of a low-flying airplane closing in on his position. Cold sweat chilled his back as his stomach twisted, remembering the gunshot that went off when the patrolman spotted him before he raced into the field. He didn’t slow down when it happened or even think to shield himself. He kept running, dreading the thought of what would happen if he was caught. Two other boys that escaped with him were nearby, but he had no idea what happened to the others. His body ached and the blisters on his feet stung. The rough dirt scratched his arms as he heard the crowd of men chasing him getting closer. Their footsteps and rustling through the fields rose to a crescendo. He had hoped to escape Eldora to Minneapolis and find a job. Those plans were crumbling to dust as he kept his head to the ground and listened to the cacophony of shouts, boots marching in the scrub, and the din of an airplane slowly closed in to his location.
  
  
  The Iowa legislature established Eldora in 1868 as a juvenile correction facility for boys and girls under eighteen. Over the course of the next few decades, Eldora – then known as the Industrial School for Boys – relocated to Eldora, Iowa, and shifted their admittance to boys between seven and sixteen. Boys who were sent to Eldora could expect a militaristic environment, harsh treatment, and hard labor in the name of moral reform. Throughout the facility’s history, stories of abuse were rampant. What options did boys interred at Eldora have when faced with these conditions?
  
  On August 29, 1945, in retaliation against the murder of one of the inmates, Ronald LeRoy Miller, a riot erupted at Eldora and 179 boys escaped the facility. That day, disciplinary officer Carl Klatt beat seventeen-year-old Miller to death with a blackjack and leather strap, with another guard, Harold Nelson, allegedly involved in the murder. Their actions sparked the riot, which would be followed by several other mass escape attempts over the course of the following weeks. The resulting coverage of the incident did shed light on the abuse and cruel punishments taking place at Eldora. Iowa governor Robert D. Blue ordered an investigation of all penal institutions in the state and district judge Dean W. Piesen launched a grand jury investigation into Eldora specifically. While the incident led to the suspension and firing of several employees, Eldora remained open and the actual result of these investigations seems minimal.
  
  Even without the constant threat of physical punishment, life at Eldora was difficult. Boys were expected to undertake hard labor in the name of moral reform. One account from a former cottage manager and World War II veteran who resigned from his position following the riot noted that “conditions at the institution were ‘as bad as those in a nazi prison concentration camp.’” (“Suspend Eldora Guards,” Mason City Globe-Gazette, 31 August 1945) These statements, however, were quickly dismissed, and newspaper accounts of the incident were just as likely to highlight the violence of the boys in attacking guards and escaping over their treatment at Eldora. A twelve-foot hurricane fence and additional disciplinary cottage were even added to specifically prevent further escape attempts and punish so-called troublemakers. Two fifteen-year-old “ringleaders” of the riots were sentenced to ten years in prison at Anamosa, with a total of sixty-seven boys sent there as well to quarters separated from the rest of the facility.
  
  Given these conditions, escape was often one of the few options available to inmates at Eldora. Either that, or they had to endure and survive until they were released at twenty-one. This is what led to the escape attempt three years later. On August 27, 1948, nine boys escaped from Eldora, resulting in a manhunt across the state with ten highway patrolmen, two deputy sheriffs, thirty-five farmers, and one airplane. One account of the incident included a short interaction between one of the boys, sixteen-year-old Milton Monson and Deputy Sheriff Jerry Allen after Monson’s capture:

  “The youngster was still defiant and told Deputy Sheriff Jerry Allen as he was being lodged in Cerro Gordo county jail: ‘You won’t catch us so easy next time.’
  
  ‘What makes you think there’ll be a next time?’ Allen asked.
  
  ‘There will be,’ was the answer.”
  (“5 Boys Back at Eldora After Capture at Manly,” Mason City Globe-Gazette, 27 August 1948)