Iron Caster’s Unique Redesign a Historic Footnote


Circular cell blocks (left) rotated on a central axis, meaning cells had to be positioned in front of a single door (right) to open.


Decades before “think outside the box” became one of the most popular metaphors in the busi- ness world, a Midwestern foundryman chased an idea with the goal of reinventing the box, or at least one kind of box.


In 1880, Benjamin F. Haugh opened an iron casting facility in Indianapolis. Less than a year later, along with local architect William H. Brown, he filed for a patent for an innovative


design for jails. Te two came up with a circular cell block with wedge-shaped cells that would rotate on a central axis (via a ring and pinion mechanism that featured a number of castings). Te goal, according to the patent application, was to allow “prisoners [to] be controlled without the necessity of personal contact between them and the jailer or guard. … Tis arrangement makes the whole prison as convenient to the keeper as though it consisted of but a single cell, and as safe as if it contained but a single prisoner.”


Te two-tiered, 16-cell Montgomery County Rotary Jail opened in 1882 in Crawfordsville, Ind. In the following years, as many as 18 similarly designed prisons opened up in the Mid- west. But inherent flaws in the design—including limited natural light, poor ventilation, fire safety concerns and potential prisoner injury during rotation—led to the shuttering of most sites within decades.


The Montgomery County Rotary Jail was the first circular jail to open. 64 | MODERN CASTING January 2015


SHAKEOUT Photos courtesy of the Library of Congress


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