The California Correctional Institution in Cummings Valley has long been known as a men’s prison, which it has been for the past 70 years. But it didn’t start out that way. In fact, the facility began in 1933 as the first women’s prison in the state of California.

Prior to that, female state inmates were housed in the men’s prison at San Quentin, originally side by side with the men, and then later in a separate women’s wing.

Keeping male and female inmates in close proximity led to problems, naturally, so it was decided that female prisoners needed their own facility, entirely removed from a men’s prison.

Construction on the new penitentiary, known as the California Institution for Women (CIW), began in Cummings Valley in 1931, on 1,683 acres of land that the state bought from Lucas Brite. It took a couple of years to complete the buildings, and the first 30 female inmates arrived in September of 1933.

Initially, the California Institution for Women was basically run as an extension of San Quentin, but after a few years it had its own independent management system.

Although it was a prison, CIW didn’t look like one. And in many ways, it didn’t function like one. At least not a typical prison.

The structures were built in a French Normandy style, and there were three large two-story residential buildings for the inmates. These were referred to as “cottages,” though they were more like attractive dormitories, with a kitchen, dining room, living room, bathrooms and a supervisor’s quarters.

One of the three cottages represented a form of segregation, housing Black women on the lower floor and older inmates of all ethnicities on the upper floor.

With its attractive layout and design, many visitors described CIW as looking like a small college or elite boarding school.

And in truth, it did represent a very different vision of incarceration and rehabilitation. For example, women weren’t issued identical inmate uniforms. Instead, they could choose between a variety of fabric colors, and they made their own dresses, skirts and blouses.

The biggest prison industry at CIW was sewing, and by 1948 there were nearly 100 inmates working in the sewing shop, earning from five cents to 50 cents a day making assorted garments, dresses, pillow cases, pajamas and flags for use by the state.

The total population in July of 1948 was 332 female inmates, along with just 10 male employees, including six who worked as guards as the front gate, and a couple of firemen and a couple of maintenance men.

The women inmates were directed and managed by unarmed female employees known as “matrons.” My great-aunt Freda Estes was a matron at CIW, and she told me that the demeanor of the prisoners was generally respectful and pretty relaxed, and it was definitely not a violent place.

Proof of that can be seen in the fact that my aunt used to take my mother to work with her sometimes when my Ma was only 12 years old or so. Many of the inmates were mothers themselves who missed their children, so they were delighted to have a chance to see and talk to the very well-behaved, gracious girl that my mom was.

Can you imagine a correctional officer today bringing their young niece to work with them? CIW in Cummings Valley was definitely an experiment in a different kind of incarceration.

All the work the inmates did was voluntary, not compulsory, and in addition to the sewing shop, female inmates also worked doing all the groundskeeping and gardening, raising chickens for eggs and meat, as well as rabbits, and they had a barn where they milked several cows for dairy supplies for the prison. Inmates grew vegetables and fruits to consume, and they did a lot of canning during the harvest season.

CIW inmates were on the honor system and were not closely watched. It was the prisoners themselves who did all the cooking and meal preparation. They did have a mandatory morning “get-up” time of 6 a.m., and a nighttime “lights-out” at 9 p.m.

Surprisingly, these were not just white-color criminals or women who had committed minor crimes — many of the inmates were convicted felons. In its history, California has only executed four female convicts, and at least two of them, Juanita Spinelli and Louise Peete, spent years at CIW in Tehachapi prior to their execution in the gas chamber at San Quentin.

Although it was a ground-breaking and seemingly successful example of alternative incarceration, on July 21, 1952, the experiment all came crashing down. Literally.

The Tehachapi earthquake of 1952 heavily damaged many prison buildings, and the female inmates were housed in tents on prison grounds for the rest of the summer. They were then moved a new facility at Frontera (Chino).

The unique confinement and rehabilitation approach in Cummings Valley was over. When the prison was rebuilt, it became a conventional men’s prison.

I don’t know what the future holds for CCI, which now holds only about 1,600 inmates — about one-quarter of the men’s population that it did at its peak a few decades back.

But 90 years ago, the Cummings Valley facility was California’s first women’s prison, and although it was still a penitentiary, was a model in treating female prisoners with more respect and compassion.

Have a good week.

Jon Hammond has written for Tehachapi News for more than 40 years. Send email to [email protected].