shanks and shakers
I toured an abandoned prison yesterday.
It was Moms' Weekend for Ste's frat but he had a weekend class to take so he and Mom couldn't do too much. They went out on Friday night (and Dad came with me to my work's happy hour) but Saturday my parents and I were left to our own devices. Dad had heard about the old Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City and that they do tours on the weekends so we drove out there. It was cold and a little dreary, but that actually kind of fit the area.
The prison was in use from 1836 to 2004. When the new prison was built and the prisoners transferred over in 2004, the state basically abandoned the old penitentiary and the property (although it is still owned by the state). Some volunteers and local historians run the weekend tours, hoping to drum up enough business and interest to ask the state to start preserving the site, but so far they've had no luck. Some of the buildings are starting to leak and crumble. Our tour guide was a guy who had worked in the prison in one capacity or another for over forty years and had written two books about the Missouri prison system, the old Penitentiary, and the men and women incarcerated there. Basically? HE KNEW EVERYTHING. It was awesome; he was telling us all these stories about famous criminals who had done time there (Pretty Boy Floyd, Sonny Liston, James Earl Ray) and in-house murders he had investigated and the cats that used to sneak onto the property and befriend the inmates.
We saw part of the main entrance and two different housing blocks, wandered around the property a bit, and then saw the yard and the gas chamber. (Forty-eight men and one woman were executed in the gas chamber during the prison's operation. One man was executed by lethal injection in the chamber after they stopped using gas.) It's crazy how empty and derelict the place looks now, considering less than ten years ago, this was a functioning prison. The tour guide told us that at one point it was the only prison in Missouri, so they couldn't refuse inmates; overcrowding was a serious problem and one of the issues that led to the 1954 prison riot. Depending on the inmate population, anywhere from two to five men could be put in a cell - and those cells were tiny. None of the doors or locks were run by computers; obviously they never existed when the prison was built and nothing was retrofitted over the years. So, in 2004, they were still using a system of over 900 keys to operate the prison on a daily basis, with 2000 back-up keys and the local locksmith actually had to hand-make parts to fix the antiquated locks.
Honestly, it was just a really fascinating place. It helped to have a tour guide who was clearly knowledgeable and had a personal history with the buildings as well. Between my love of history, my love of abandoned places, and my love of criminology, this place was plain awesome. I'm really glad my dad heard about it and took me.
I posted some pictures on my Flickr, but here's a few of my favorites that I edited.
My dad in one of the cells.
The first housing block we toured, the lights had this weird green tint. It made everything kind spooky.
The second housing block.
This fence surrounded the gas chamber building.
tl;dr - It was awesome and here are my photos.
It was Moms' Weekend for Ste's frat but he had a weekend class to take so he and Mom couldn't do too much. They went out on Friday night (and Dad came with me to my work's happy hour) but Saturday my parents and I were left to our own devices. Dad had heard about the old Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City and that they do tours on the weekends so we drove out there. It was cold and a little dreary, but that actually kind of fit the area.
The prison was in use from 1836 to 2004. When the new prison was built and the prisoners transferred over in 2004, the state basically abandoned the old penitentiary and the property (although it is still owned by the state). Some volunteers and local historians run the weekend tours, hoping to drum up enough business and interest to ask the state to start preserving the site, but so far they've had no luck. Some of the buildings are starting to leak and crumble. Our tour guide was a guy who had worked in the prison in one capacity or another for over forty years and had written two books about the Missouri prison system, the old Penitentiary, and the men and women incarcerated there. Basically? HE KNEW EVERYTHING. It was awesome; he was telling us all these stories about famous criminals who had done time there (Pretty Boy Floyd, Sonny Liston, James Earl Ray) and in-house murders he had investigated and the cats that used to sneak onto the property and befriend the inmates.
We saw part of the main entrance and two different housing blocks, wandered around the property a bit, and then saw the yard and the gas chamber. (Forty-eight men and one woman were executed in the gas chamber during the prison's operation. One man was executed by lethal injection in the chamber after they stopped using gas.) It's crazy how empty and derelict the place looks now, considering less than ten years ago, this was a functioning prison. The tour guide told us that at one point it was the only prison in Missouri, so they couldn't refuse inmates; overcrowding was a serious problem and one of the issues that led to the 1954 prison riot. Depending on the inmate population, anywhere from two to five men could be put in a cell - and those cells were tiny. None of the doors or locks were run by computers; obviously they never existed when the prison was built and nothing was retrofitted over the years. So, in 2004, they were still using a system of over 900 keys to operate the prison on a daily basis, with 2000 back-up keys and the local locksmith actually had to hand-make parts to fix the antiquated locks.
Honestly, it was just a really fascinating place. It helped to have a tour guide who was clearly knowledgeable and had a personal history with the buildings as well. Between my love of history, my love of abandoned places, and my love of criminology, this place was plain awesome. I'm really glad my dad heard about it and took me.
I posted some pictures on my Flickr, but here's a few of my favorites that I edited.
My dad in one of the cells.
The first housing block we toured, the lights had this weird green tint. It made everything kind spooky.
The second housing block.
This fence surrounded the gas chamber building.
tl;dr - It was awesome and here are my photos.