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United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners

hospital in Missouri, United States

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ2495382
Source-derived summary

The United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners (MCFP Springfield) is a United States federal prison in Springfield, Missouri, for male offenders. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice.

History

During the Great Depression, the city of Springfield, Missouri, offered 620 acres (250 ha) of land to the federal government to build the prison, under the direction of business leaser and Chamber of Commerce president John T. Woodruff. Congress authorized the building of the prison in 1930. The prison opened in 1933 as the "United States Hospital for Defective Delinquents", under superintendent Marion R. King. The land surrounding the prison was used by the prisoners for farming until 1966. In 1977, the federal government returned some of the original 620 acres to the city. Prison riots occurred in 1941, 1944 and 1959.

Several political prisoners and spies arrested during World War II were held at MCFP Springfield for medical treatment. Anastasy Vonsyatsky served 3 years of a 5-year sentence there for conspiring to aid Hitler's Germany in violation of the Espionage Act before being released in 1946.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners” as hospital in Missouri, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1930, 1933, 1966, 1977—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1933. The account is most persuasive where United, States and Medical can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as hospital in Missouri, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2495382. VIAF identifies the subject as 134876369. The Library of Congress control number is n81057215. Authority coordinates are 37.178, -93.325. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930, 1933, 1966 and 1977.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners primary sources, United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners archive and United research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.