Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Can., mainly west coast/US) a prison.

1873		Albany Register (OR) 13 Sept. 3/3: Three Indians attempted to [...] obtain the keys of the prison [...] in order to release Indian Dick, confined in the skookum house.
1880		Vancouver Indep. 10 June 1/2: The old grand-mother [...] cried so much about the grand-daughter that the agent had to lock her up in the ‘Skookum house’ (prison) tomake her shut up.
1881		O.O. Howard Nez Perce Joseph 47: [...] stating that we were going to put them into the ‘Skookum-house’ (meaning the military prison or guard-house).
1894		in Case and Comment XXII 19/1: To which the wild one asserted, ‘Injun no ’fraid judge, no ’fraid marshal, no ’fraid “skookum house”’ (jail).
1894		O. Wister in Harper’s Mag. Sept. 514/1: Maybe he catch E-egante, maybe put him in skookum-house (prison)? [DAE].
1905		R. Beach Pardners (1912) 59: I was dragged to the ‘skookum house,’ where I spent the night.
1907		D. Runyon ‘The Defence of Strikerville’ in From First To Last (1954) 13: Come along [...] before the boogie man sloughs you in the skookum for mopery.
1919		Phildelphia Inquirer (PA) 30 Nov. 77/5: ‘Every one of you will go to the skookum house’.
1925		J. Black You Can’t Win (1926) 231: When spring came, my Chinese ‘tillicum,’ which is Chinook for friend, and I were the only felony prisoners in the ‘skookum house,’ or jail.
1939		M. Colby Guide to Alaska xli: Some of the Chinook expressions still used in everyday speech [...] skookum-house n. (C.) jail.
1946		Mason City Globe-Gaz, (IA) 8 May 16/5: [cartoon caption] ‘Hey, Fella — where’s the skookum house?’ ‘Why...it’s a jail!’.
1955		Reno Gaz.-Jrnl (NV) 2 Mar. 15/2: I told Mike we had better get out of there before they put us in the Tower of London [...] or the Skookum House.
1966–8		in DARE.