Almost 100 Years Older Than Alcatraz

Called the 47 bloodiest acres in America, it is almost 100 years older than Alcatraz and was once the largest prison in the world.  It is the Missouri State Penitentiary; the first prison west of the Mississippi River.

By 1888, the Missouri State Penitentiary was the largest prison in the world.  It was decommissioned in 2004, and is now a tourist attraction. 

I went on a tour, and my favorite part was the early history of the penitentiary.

  

When Missouri first became a state, Jefferson City was a nervous capital city.  It was afraid that St. Louis to the east or Kansas City to the west would steal the capital from this little town on the Missouri River.  So, Jefferson City built a penitentiary.  It was a sign of permanence.

The inmates in the prison were was a source of free labor for the town.  Inmates did road construction in Jefferson City.  Every morning, the inmates would be issued shovels and sticks of dynamite, basic tools for building roads.  When the crews returned in the evening, there was not a good accounting of what happened to the dynamite issued in the morning.

So, the Missouri State Penitentiary lost a few inmates every once in a while --- when they blasted their way out of the prison walls.

Free labor led to clothing factories being built right inside the prison.  And there were shoe factories. 

For most people on the prison tours the highlight is the gas chamber, which was used for executions between 1937 and 1987.  However, no matter how eager you are to see the gas chamber, all the tourists have to pass through the gift shop.

I realized the psychology: the tours are run by volunteers and they need money to maintain the buildings.  Catch the tourists when they are most hyped up: at the doorstep to the site of 40 deaths by lethal gas.  Hyped-up tourists will buy more souvenirs than calm tourists.

The gas chamber has two execution chairs.  I started to think about 'two executions for the price of one', but 40 framed photographs on the wall told me this was no laughing matter.

People who were incarcerated in the Missouri State Penitentiary include:

  STAGGER LEE SHELTON (whose murder of Billy Lyons in St. Louis inspired a blues song).

  PRETTY BOY FLOYD (served a 4-year sentence before going on a spree of murders and bank robberies).

  KATIE O'HARE (a Socialist, imprisoned for giving a speech).

  EMMA GOLDMAN (an Anarchist, imprisoned for advocating birth control).

  JAMES EARL RAY (who escaped from the Missouri State Pen one year before assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr).

SONNY LISTONn was also incarcerated in the Missouri State Penitentiary, and the tourguides let me go in his cell.  Standing there was an antidote to having visited the gas chamber.  The person who had been in this very cell turned his life around and went on to become the World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. 

I was standing in the cell of someone who showed that incarceration could do more than punish, it could rehabilitate.

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A 5-minute YouTube tour of the State Pen: soundtrack is Tom Waits singing "They're serving fish in the jailhouse tonight, oh boy."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p49deQ_-WVU

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com