Texana Thursday: 4 Things You Might Not Know about Old Sparky

Old Sparky, now at the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville (Lori Smith photo, Creative Commons license)

In the northeast corner of the Huntsville Unit (also known as the Walls Unit because of its tall, red brick walls), sits the execution chamber. For many years, Death Row inmates met a shocking fate there thanks to an electric chair known as “Old Sparky.”

The chair has long since been retired, and you can see it at the Texas Prison Museum, also in Huntsville.

Some things you might not know about Old Sparky include:

1. More than one state had an Old Sparky.

In its time, the electric chair was a common way in which states carried out the death penalty. Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia all had their own electric chairs known locally as Old Sparky.

2. Old Sparky was sometimes thought of in mythical terms.

The newsman Dan Rather graduated in 1953 from Sam Houston State University, also in Huntsville. He covered executions at the prison when he was a young reporter there.

In his 1977 autobiography, The Camera Never Blinks: Adventures of a TV Journalist, Rather recalled: “The town was so small then that a myth had grown up around the executions. You were supposed to be able to tell when they threw the switch to the electric chair because all the lights in Huntsville would dim for a few seconds. I have never been certain that was so, but it was pretty romantic stuff, and I must say I believed it at the time.”

3. Old Sparky was “retired” in 1964.

Before prison inmates built Old Sparky in 1923, Death Row inmates were executed by hanging. According to the museum, when the State of Texas began using Old Sparky, from 1923-1964, 361 inmates were put to death there.

In 1964, however, the U.S. Supreme Court began deliberations on execution practices, and the death sentences were suspended. Old Sparky remained in its spot, ready to work if and when it would be legal to proceed with executions.

According to an article in The Guardian, a British newspaper, the Texas Department of Corrections in 1976 tested Old Sparky to confirm that everything was in working order. It was.

The State of Texas resumed carrying out death sentences in 1982, but changed the method from electrocution to lethal injection. At that time, Old Sparky was moved to the museum.

4. Old Sparky is still functional today.

According to a Texas Tribune article, the chair could still be used. However, state law prescribes lethal injection as the method for carrying out the death penalty. It would take an act of the Texas Legislature to use Old Sparky today for its intended purpose.