When we were in high
school, we used to go see some girls in Sugar Land. They took us
swimming in a lake back of where Nalco Chemical is located. There
was just a dirt trail leading up to the lake. Some evenings when we
went to Sugar Land, we would go to the general store and buy
everything to make a picnic lunch. The second summer that we went to
Sugar Land swimming, someone built a frame structure on the bank of
the lake. We would climb up the structure and jump off in the lake.
The swimming lake was on
Imperial Sugar property. There was no Highway 6. The dirt trail was
the other side of farm foreman Schumann’s house. The Harlem prison
buildings and Harlem prison farm land joined the Sugar Land farm
land. This was during the period of 1928 through 1932.
A convict escaped from
Harlem prison #1. He was making his way through the Sugar Land
property. The convict saw the wooden structure and climbed to the
top to look toward the prison to see if the guards and dogs were on
his trail. He saw no one any place, so he relaxed and rested on the
top of the diving structure which was on the very edge of the lake.
The convict slipped and
fell in the water. He could not swim so he drowned. The convict’s
ghost stayed at the diving structure. Every month on the date he
drowned you could see his ghost jumping from the diving structure.
Needless to say, this eliminated our swimming and picnicking at the
lake.
