Commissioners Close County Workhouse

From The Indianapolis News, Friday, May 31: The Marion County Workhouse, 403 W. 21st St, will close tomorrow and the eighteen prisoners now confined there will be moved to the county jail where the sheriff will set off space to be designated as the workhouse. The county commissioners said the closing was a direct result of the prohibition law. Since the law went into effect, the number of prisoners at the workhouse and at the jail has decreased more than fifty per-cent. Except for the cost of feeding the workhouse prisoners at the jail, the county will save most of the maintenance cost of the workhouse. This will help to offset a large portion of the revenue the county once received from liquor license fees before enactment of the prohibition law. The workhouse buildings may be used for war work.

“Commissioners Close County Workhouse,” The Indianapolis News, 31 May 1918, p. 1:3

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