I love looking through old copies of the St. Cloud Daily Times on the Minnesota Historical Society Digital Newspaper Hub. I read the stories, look at the ads, check out the classifieds and see what was up locally in the past. Today I was looking through the issue from January 21, 1929 and came across this story:
When reading the papers, I will sometimes look up the names mentioned in the articles, and so I looked up George Harsh. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair. He wound up getting his death sentence commuted to hard labor. While in prison he saved the life of a fellow inmate by performing an appendectomy (there's a story I'd love to hear), and was released after serving 12 years.
After drifting for a few years he emigrated to Canada where, during WWII, he joined the Canadian Air Force, serving as a tail gunner. His plane was shot down and he was captured by the Germans. In 1944 he helped 126 Allied prisoners tunnel out of Stalag 3. You might remember that caper from a little movie they made about it called "The Great Escape."
In 1971 he wrote a book called Lonesome Road and became an anti-capital punishment advocate.
He went from teenage thrill killer to war hero to author and activist, and died in 1980.
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