TEHACHAPI, Calif. -- Before the California Institution for Women in Tehachapi was built in 1933, women were kept in San Quentin and Folsom Prisons.

Both San Quentin and Folsom were getting crowded with male criminals, and so in 1929 a bill was based by the state of California to build a women's prison.

California Correctional Institution Public Information Officer, Jon Bartelmie said, “Back in 1929 a bill was passed to build a female prison. At that time females were being housed at San Quentin and Folsom. They passed the bill to purchase 1650 acres here in Tehachapi.”

Bartelmie said Tehachapi was chosen because of its isolation, but also because of its easy access to the Los Angeles area where many inmates came from.

Four years after the bill was passed and $660,000 later, the prison opened with 170 female prisoners in July of 1933.

Soon after in 1934, the prison welcomed California’s first woman to be on death row, Nellie May Madison.

“She was sentenced to death by hanging, however 16 days prior to her execution date the then governor commuted her sentence to life in prison,” said Bartelmie.

Her sentence was reduced once again after she admitted to shooting her husband but cited years of both physical and emotional abuse.

She was released in 1944 after only nine years in prison.

California’s first women’s prison, referred to as just Tehachapi, had many mentions in Hollywood crime dramas such as the 1944 movie Double Indemnity and the 1941 Maltese Falcon.

From Double Indemnity, “....then there was a case of a guy that was found shot. His wife said he was cleaning a gun and his stomach got in the way. All she collected was a 3 to 10 stretch in Tehachapi.”

And from Maltese Falcon, “Well, if you get a good break, you will be out of Tehachapi in 20 years and you can come back to me then. I hope they don’t hang you precious, for that sweet neck. ”

The prison operated as a women’s prison until the 1952 Tehachapi earthquake.

The earthquake did massive damage to the prison and the women were permanently were moved to the new California Institution for Women in Corona.

The prison was rebuilt after the earthquake with the help of male inmates from Chino, and in 1955, it reopened as a men’s prison which it remains to date.