United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute
Federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana
The United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute (USP Terre Haute) is a high-security United States federal prison for male inmates in Terre Haute, Indiana. It is part of the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute (FCC Terre Haute) and is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. USP Terre Haute houses a Special Confinement Unit for male federal inmates who have been sentenced to death as well as the federal execution chamber. Two of the three inmates awaiting execution by the U.S. federal government are housed in USP Terre Haute.
FCC Terre Haute is located in the city of Terre Haute, 70 miles (110 km) west of Indianapolis.
History
A new United States penitentiary was authorized by President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938 and established in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1940 on 1,126 acres (4.56 km2) of land. The opening of the prison in this city was partly due to heavy promotion by Terre Haute's Chamber of Commerce, which eventually went on to raise $50,000 to pay for the property on which the prison was built. The residents of Terre Haute initially embraced the prison due to the impression that it would provide jobs to local residents in addition to helping Terre Haute's economy while only housing non-violent offenders. E.B. Swope was the prison's first warden.
The U.S. Public Works Administration issued a $3 million grant to pay for construction of USP Terre Haute in 1938.
The public source identifies “United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute” as federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around United, States and Penitentiary.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14688835. Authority coordinates are 39.407, -87.455. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938 and 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute” 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.