14 November, 2002

'Old Sparky' finds a new home

Prisoners built the museum housing the electric chair

The infamous electric chair used in Texas to send more than 300 criminals to their deaths has become the main exhibit in a new prison museum.

 "Old Sparky" is the most popular exhibit

 The now-retired Old Sparky, as the chair is known, is on display at the Texas Prison Museum in the city of Huntsville, which is dedicated to the history of the state's prisons in the past 150 years.

 Prisoners from nearby Huntsville jail helped build the museum which replicates the institution's cramped interior and imposing exterior.

 Inside displays feature everything from the chains used to immobilise prisoners to more mundane items such as handcuffs, albeit from the 19th century, and contraband items confiscated from prisoners such as weapons and explosives.

 'Nostalgic effect'

 However it is the notorious electric chair that has proved the most popular exhibit for visitors, as part of its capital punishment exhibition.

 Curators hope the museum provides a feel for the prison system

 "It is the Number One exhibit," museum director Weldon Svoboda told the Associated Press news agency.

 "For some reason the electric chair has some kind of nostalgic effect on people. It's kind of weird."

 The chair was adopted by Texas state authorities in 1924 after the traditional hangman's noose was abandoned.

 However in 1982 the state began executing death row criminals by lethal injection, starting with convicted killer Charlie Brooks.

 Long history

 The tubes used to administer the drugs to Brooks are also on display in the museum, as is an anti-death penalty poster which shows the image of Karla Tucker, who in 1998 became the first woman to be executed in Texas since the American Civil War in the 1860s.

 "We give them the feel of the prison system and the evolution of it," Janice Willett, treasurer of the museum board, said.

 "There is a rich culture and history."

 Texas has executed more than 280 prisoners in the past two decades, more than any other US state.