Biography
Leroy Horlacher was an IWW member and conscientious objector imprisoned during World War I. Arrested at Camp Meade in September 1918, he was confined there and later at Fort Leavenworth and Alcatraz. He was released in April 1920. His papers, including court-martial proceedings, are held by the Pennsylvania State Archives.
1920s custody review: Pennsylvania State Archives archivist Richard Saylor, writing from Horlacher family court-martial papers in Pennsylvania Heritage (Spring 2017), dates arrest September 19, 1918, judgment November 16, and release from Alcatraz April 1920. These replace the misleading 1917 draft-year admission and improve the release precision. The account places initial confinement at Camp Meade, Leavenworth by Christmas 1918, and transfer to Alcatraz in June 1919. Initial confinement is recorded only at 1918 year precision pending the stockade register. The original judgment described by the archivist is twenty-five years; the older database says fifteen reduced to three, so later sentence revisions still require reconciliation. Manuscript Group 284 contains photographs, but no individual portrait has yet been retrieved and verified.
