Speeches delivered by Pat M. Neff, Governor of Texas, discussing certain phases of contemplated legislation Page: 46 of 61
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-46PRESENT
LOCATION INACCESSIBLE AND EXPENSIVE.
Huntsville, the headquarters of the prison system, is especially inaccessible.
Prison quarters, prison industries and prison farms, should
be concentrated at some point more accessible and more convenient for
the economic handling of the penitentiary prisoners, penitentiary supplies
and penitentiary productions. It costs the penitentiary over a
hundred thousand dollars each year to pay transportation charges on
supplies sent to and from Huntsville to the distant and widely scattered
farms, which charges would be eliminated by moving the headquarters,
and concentrating all the penitentiary industries on the Brazoria
and Fort Bend County Farms.
ONE CENTRAL DISTRIBUTING POINT.
I would build the penitentiary walls, administrative offices, shops
and factories on the railroad and near the center of the fifty-three
thousand acre farms. This central plant would be the one big distributing
point, the farms all being connected with improved highways.
MISTAKES OF THE PAST.
The mistakes of the past are of no service except to guide our feet
for the future. As an original proposition I would not have purchased
these lands in Brazoria and Fort Bend Counties for penitentiary farms.
They have on them entirely too much overflow land. They have too
much low, wet land. Why they were bought in the beginning, I levees should be
built. Engineers have surveyed the farms and say that most of the
land in this way may be made reasonably safe from excessive rainfall
and river flood waters. Cotton, corn and cane are the chief productions
on these farms. Vegetables grow in abundance twelve months in
the year.
THE BRAZORIA AND FORT BEND COUNTY FARMS.
The fifty-three thousand acre farms in Brazoria and Fort Bend
Counties have just about sufficient land for. the penitentiary system.
These farms are all in the same general neighborhood. Oyster
Creek providing at all times running water, though it does not overflow,
runs through all of these farms except two. This is indeed a valuable
consideration.
BRAZORIA AND FORT BEND COUNTY FARMS HAVE RAILROAD CONNECTIONS
AND FACILITIES.
All these farms have railroad connections and facilities. On the
Clemens Farm, in Brazoria County, the State owns 13 miles of railroad
running from Brazoria to the sugar mill-about six and one-half
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Neff, Pat M. Speeches delivered by Pat M. Neff, Governor of Texas, discussing certain phases of contemplated legislation, book, 1923; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth5835/m1/46/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .