In 1899, President
William McKinley authorized the construction of a new federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia Congressman
Leonidas F. Livingston advocated placing the prison in Atlanta.
William S. Eames, an architect from
St. Louis, Missouri; and
United States Attorney General John W. Griggs, on April 18, 1899, traveled to Atlanta to select the prison site. Construction was completed in January 1902 and the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary opened with the transfer of six convicts from the
Sing Sing Correctional Facility in upstate New York. The main prison building was designed by the
St. Louis, Missouri architect firm of
Eames & Young, which also designed the main building at the
United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth. It encompassed and had a capacity of 1200 inmates. The facility was subsequently renamed the United States Penitentiary, Atlanta when US government created the
Federal Bureau of Prisons in 1930. In the 1980s, USP Atlanta was used as a detention center for
Cuban refugees from the
Mariel boatlift who were ineligible for release into American society. USP Atlanta was one of several facilities, including the
Federal Transfer Center, Oklahoma City, that were used to house prisoners who are being transferred between prisons. ==Notable incidents==