Menards Gurnee, Politics, Current Facility, Punishment, History, Merit System, Major Incidents, Grounds, and more!

Menards Gurnee unincorporated community is located in Illinois’s Randolph County. Just west of Chester, on the east side of the Mississippi River, you’ll find Menard. The Menard Correctional Institution is conveniently situated nearby. Postal service in Menard begins at ZIP code 62259. The community of Chester in Randolph County, Illinois, therefore, is home to Menard Correctional Center, a state prison formerly known as Southern Illinois Penitentiary.

Male inmates with the highest and highest medium level of security are housed there. The 2007 average daily population was 3,410 people. In March of 1878, Menard Correctional Center first opened its doors, making it the second-oldest jail in Illinois and the largest prison in the state. Convicts on death row were originally imprisoned at Menard, but on January 10, 2003.

Politics And County Government:

Counties in Illinois can choose whether or not to adopt the township model of municipal government. Among Illinois’ 102 counties, only Menards Gurnee County is one of the 16 that has chosen to forego the township system. Before World War I, Menard was a Democratic county populated by German Catholics who were at odds with the Yankee Protestants of Northern Illinois. Only Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, won the county in this time frame in 1904. In 1916, Charles Evans Hughes won Menard County by a razor-thin margin, thanks to the opposition.

Current Facility:

Totaling 2,600 acres (11 km2) as of 2006, 41 of Menards Gurnee Correctional Center’s acres are inside the facility’s walls. There are a total of six dwellings on the property. Inmates with moderate aggression levels and those given work tasks are housed in the South Lowers Housing Unit and the South Uppers Housing Unit, respectively (Though closed for repairs in October 2018). The Step-Down Unit and the General Population are located in the North I Cell House. Inmates in disciplinary segregation, administrative detention.

Capital Punishment:

In 1931, Menard was one of three locations in Illinois where the death penalty was carried out using an electric chair. The electric chair was used to execute 18 people in the state’s southern counties between 1928 and 1962. Other electrocutions in Illinois took place at the Cook County Jail in Chicago and the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill. Men on death row were previously kept in the Menard, Pontiac, and Tamm’s penitentiary facilities before the commute of death sentences on January 11, 2003.

History:

19th Century:

The nineteenth Century In 1833, Alton became the site of the Alton Military Prison, the first penitentiary in Illinois. Dorothea Dix, a reformer, went there in 1847 and gave a speech to the Illinois legislature in which she harshly criticized the filthy circumstances. Among many other things, she mentioned that convicts at Alton were the only ones in the United States who were forced to eat their meals standing up. Because of competition from the Joliet Correctional Center, the Alton Prison was shut down in 1858.

20th Century:

It was 1928, and the prison was severely overcrowded. There were around two times as many inmates as the facility was built for. It resulted in the construction of five new cells on either side of the prison’s passageways. Until a new cell house was constructed in the 1930s, inmates were housed in repurposed structures inside the jail yard.

Merit System:

Inmates were given grades beginning in 1903. it was the case from then until the “progressive Merit System” in 1920. Inmates might be rewarded or punished with good time according to how well the system worked. Additionally, offenders were given letter grades (A-E) based on their behavior. Promotions and demotions were determined by the warden and his subordinates on the disciplinary staff. Men in the top two classes (A and B) may, for instance, send out two letters per week.

Major Incidents:

In the early morning of a May day in 1973, 38 inmates took over the commissary and held a guard hostage for 16 hours. A group of sixty convicts took four guards hostage in May of 1974, seeking the ability to have religious services in the prison yard and other reforms to the institution’s administration. The 24-year-old Michael Blucker made headlines in March 1994.

Grounds And History Of enslaved people:

Slavery and its legacy on this property are not discussed in the museum or house. To reconstruct the location of the slave quarters, archaeologists Christopher Stratton and William Flesher undertook their research in 1999. From 1810 to 1830, enslaved people increased from seven to twenty-two. They remained property enslaved people until 1848 when slavery was finally outlawed in Illinois. On the grounds of the Illinois state house in Springfield, a statue of Pierre Menard was one of just three.

Conclusion:

The Ghannam family has been living in Menards Gurnee for generations. To serve the community of Gurnee with Amazingly Delicious Mouthwatering food that is all-natural, healthful, and Fresh Made to order, our family has brought Teriyaki Madness to the area. The Gurnee community is important to us, and we hope our restaurant can become an integral part of the town by serving as a gathering place for locals and visitors alike and by serving great, nutritious food that people of all ages will appreciate.

Grounds And History Of enslaved people:

Those assigned to Group C were restricted to one weekly writing assignment. Only with specific permission were D and E-level inmates allowed to write. When he sued the state of Menard for negligence after catching HIV while incarcerated there, Blucker claimed that prison employees aided in the rape of him by gang members. After complaints over “Memorializing persons and a time,” the Speaker of the House and the Office of Architecture took down Menard’s statue on August 19, 2020.

FAQs:

Who Owns Menards Gurnee Now?

Overview. Menard Inc., the parent company of the Menard home improvement stores, is headquartered in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Is Menards Gurnee Bigger Than Home Depot?

According to surveys by Menards customers, the company’s name is rated #- among the world’s top 1000 brands. Based on ratings from their customers.

Does Walmart own Dollar Tree?

One Dollar Tree operates as a separate entity in the public market. Dollar Tree is owned not by a single person but by a group of shareholders.