Over at Crosscut, Knute Berger has waded deep into the history of Seattle's chain gangs.

"Local reformers called it a 'relic of a barbarous age,'" Berger writes. Even so, he reports, Seattle's chain gangs "built parks, sewers, roads and sidewalks. They filled potholes and dug the city out of winter snow and mudslides. They picked up the trash and cleared land. They worked along the waterfront to keep Elliott Bay, well, at bay. They helped rebuild post-fire Seattle. They even helped the city get ready for hosting a world's fair."

In the second part of his series, Berger explores how Seattle's jail, at the time, may have been one of the few worse places to land than on a chain gang. In part three, he looks at how women and Socialists led the reforms that changed conditions for the city's prisoners. In part four, he looks at how the chain gang, when it still existed, was sometimes used to punish men for street harassment.

It's an interesting trip into a forgotten dark corner of the city's past, and it's all worth a read.