This year marks the 55th anniversary of the worst riot in Eastern State Penitentiary’s 142-year history.

Mayhem ensued after a handful of inmates tried to find a way to freedom, taking over the large stone prison, located just blocks from Philadelphia City Hall.A late Summit Hill resident, William Derau Jr., the grandfather of reporter Amy Miller, was employed as a prison guard at the time, and was one of the men forced to free a handful from their cells.Last week, we looked at how the riot broke out.

Today, we continue our journey through the night when guards became prisoners and prisoners became guards.

In the worst riot in the Eastern State Penitentiary’s history, the mob, led by Harry Shank, John Klasenberg and Anthony Scoleri, continued their disorganized revolt through the cellblocks with nine guards as hostages, raiding the pharmacy’s inventory before working their way to the garage.

“The plan was to steal a truck from the garage, drive it up to the wall and then use a rope to climb over the wall,” Francis X. Dolan wrote in the book “Eastern State Penitentiary.”

But what the ringleaders didn’t account for was the fast response of law enforcement. Hundreds of city and state police from as far away as Bethlehem, Lancaster and Reading gathered quickly and entered with force.

According to the Jim Thorpe Times News, the day after the riot, “two shots were heard just before 11 p.m. … The end came about 50 minutes later.”

Police armed with shotguns used tear gas and clubs to retake control of the prison. They took no mercy on anyone who dared challenge them, including inmate Richard Mayberry, the only critical injury reported.

Returning to normal

By the stroke of midnight, order returned, the stale air mixed with gunpowder and smoke again settled into cellblocks as the chatter of state officials trying to sort the guards from the inmates was heard echoing through the halls.

At 4:15 a.m., William Derau was one of many guards sitting before investigators to give their accounts of how everything unfolded.

A typed transcript from his interview shows that state officials asked Derau to walk them through the events that led up to the time he ended up in cell 4 in the hopes of finding out who was involved, as well as the inmates’ movements during the last few hours of Jan. 8.

The details outlined

The investigation revealed the number of guards on duty that evening, according to the Historic Structure Report: Volume 2, was only 24, 30 fewer than on a typical day shift, which allowed for inmates, once free, to move for longer periods without being noticed.

Shank, Klasenberg and Scoleri were pegged as ringleaders, and they, as well as 29 others, faced charges for their participation.Mayberry would survive the head injury and go on to serve an extended prison term at Western State Penitentiary, where, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on June 29, 1965, he and two other prisoners used homemade bombs and zip guns to try to escape, taking hostages in the prison hospital before police intervened.

During that rebellion, Mayberry sustained a shattered hand and was sentenced to additional time. He went on to teach himself law and become a well-known jailhouse lawyer from inside his cell.

Moving past the riot

In the months that followed, typical life at Eastern State Penitentiary resumed, but wounds left from that night remained deep in the facility’s operations, and drastic changes were being made outside the walls.

Warden William Banmiller, according to the penitentiary’s Historic Structure Report, was sued by 27 rioters in March 1961, claiming cruel and unusual punishment took place that night. The suit was dismissed after being filed in the wrong court. Banmiller retired his post to Alfred T. Rundle shortly after.

Some guards also resigned from their posts following the events that unfolded that night. Derau chose to stay.

He continued to serve as a guard, watching over hundreds of inmates until the penitentiary was shut down. He was then transferred to Graterford State Correctional Institution, where he worked until his retirement in October 1975.

Derau, weak from the effects of lung cancer, passed away one month later at the age of 58.

Life beyond Eastern State

The stone fortress’s dark story nearly ended in 1970 when the state closed the prison’s doors for good.In the years that followed, the once bustling building stood silent along Fairmont Avenue, quietly allowing the earth to reclaim the land until the mid-1980s when the city purchased the decaying structure for $400,000.

In 1994, the penitentiary was reborn, this time as a gateway for the public to showcase the history of one of the most influential prisons in the country and the inmates who called it home.

Four years later, Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site Inc., a nonprofit organization to preserve the penitentiary, was formed.Today, Eastern State Penitentiary hosts thousands of visitors annually.

The prison has been the location for a number of movies and documentaries, most notably “12 Monkeys” with Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt.

Terrifying haunted tours take place at Halloween.The building stands proudly as a portal into the past, where whispers of evil intentions cling to crumbling walls, shattered dreams perch on the large iron locks that formerly kept thousands inside their cells, and forgotten souls float through the empty guard towers that still watch over the slumbering giant.