Original Texas Prison System escape notice for Olden Wade, inmate no. 34502, convicted in Falls County for murder in the first degree and sentenced to life imprisonment on February 27, 1913. The file includes a 4" x 5" double mugshot—profile and frontal—clearly showing the prisoner’s features with his number placard.

Typed intake form details Wade’s physical attributes: age 26, 5'3-7/8" tall, 152 lbs, with dark brown eyes and black hair, and notes a long list of scars, including a raised cut scar on the neck, cuts on both hands, and a scar behind the right ear. These marks, combined with his Bertillon measurements, suggest a man shaped by both physical labor and violent encounters, possibly linked to his offense or time in custody. Wade was listed as single, illiterate, intemperate, and employed as a farmer. His mother, Eliza Wade, is listed as next of kin in Calvert, Texas.

Importantly, the form records that Olden Wade escaped from Huntsville Prison on July 22, 1914, less than two years after his life sentence began. Documents like this are emblematic of the racialized carceral system of early 20th-century Texas, where African American men were disproportionately convicted, sentenced to labor, and surveilled through rudimentary biometric systems like the Bertillon method.

This rare surviving piece of African American criminal justice history is a stark artifact of Jim Crow-era policing, incarceration, and identification practices. The included large-format mugshot, combined with Wade’s detailed escape profile and conviction for capital crime, makes this a striking and historically loaded document.