Missouri State Penitentiary Part 1 - A Must Do History Tour
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The Missouri State Penitentiary (MSP) has been on my travel bucket
list for years, however, probably not for the reason you would think.
This place is said to be one of the most haunted places in the US
due to its bloody history (MSP is known as the bloodiest 47 acres
in the United States) and you know my love for all things spooky
meant I had to go. So on my road trip out to the Northeast I went
not once, but twice, to this ominous stone house of horror
and both times I had an experience I won’t soon forget. This article
is all about my first visit to the penitentiary with one of my best
friends, Abigail who is not too keen on ghosties. However, she
was still interested in visiting the place so I settled for a 2 hour daytime
history tour (my first for a haunted location) and I actually
ended up really really enjoying it.
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Before starting the tour everyone met in a lobby area near one of the original guard centers.
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We got to the tour a little early so we had some time to take
advantage of the props and photo area they had setup for visitors.
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From the lobby area our tour group headed outside and made
our way to housing unit #4. This housing unit was built in 1868 by
inmates and is the oldest existing building on the property.
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You will notice in the next pictures how this housing unit no
longer has a roof. A tornado made its way through Jefferson
City back in May of 2019 and took the roof of this housing unit
with it. Our tour (which we went on in September 2020) was the
first tour group allowed to go back inside of the building following the tornado.
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This housing unit housed some infamous inmates including boxing
star Charles “Sonny” Liston (he actually learned how
to box while serving his time here!)
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and John B. “Firebug” Johnson who was responsible for starting
a fire that created more than $500,000 in property damage and
the deaths of several fellow inmates. This act landed him in the
dungeons that sat below this unit for many years. He actually ended
up writing a book about his time down there titled “Buried Alive
for 18 years in the Missouri Penitentiary.”
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We were allowed to walk around and explore the inside of the housing
unit at our own pace and we came across some very unique things
including this cell that had a Jack Daniels label painted onto the wall.
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We also saw this door which leads into an 1800s era cell. For
almost 100 years these cells would house 6 men per cell. They
were given a chamber pot to use as a toilet, a bucket of drinking
water, and a straw filled mattress to try to help them keep
warm since there was no heat in the building.
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After about 15 minutes or so our group was led down into the
dungeons, the area below the main floor of the housing unit.
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The first thing you come to down here is the showers.
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Next we continued through a doorway and into the area where
the dungeon cells were. This is what it looks
like down there without flash photography or flashlights….total
darkness (and remember our tour was in the middle of the day). It
was said that prisoners who were kept down here would literally
go insane, bashing their heads up against the walls, because of
how long they were kept in the dark alone.
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After carefully navigating the dungeon area, we left housing unit 4 and moved on to housing unit 3.
Basketball court
This was the building where they housed some of their most dangerous criminals including the death row inmates and the man who is responsible for the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., James Earl Ray.
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James Earl Ray cell
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Abigail and I were taking our time looking around and ended
up falling behind in the tour group. One of the tour guides noticed
this and took us aside and let us see and hold the actual
original keys for the cell doors!
And yes they were heavy. Lol
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Our final stop on the tour was ironically the final stop for many
inmates, the gas chamber. 40 total inmates were put to death
here including one woman by the name of Bonnie B. Heady.
Bonnie and Carl Austin Hall kidnapped a young boy named Bobby
Greenlease requesting a $600,000 ransom which was the largest
ransom in the history of the nation. This ransom was paid, but Bonnie
and Carl had murdered and buried Bobby not long after his kidnapping.
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Outside the gas chamber in the stone walkway rests this cross.
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Ready to watch an execution. Lol
This is the room the inmates would stay before their execution.
Execution chair
Guess we were guilty after all……
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Final Takeaways
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I personally think this place is a must stop for everyone, even if you
are not into ghosts. There is so much interesting history to learn!
I also highly recommend, if you do stop to take a daytime tour, try
and get a tour with Larry. He was our tour guide and is actually
a retired maintenance man from the prison! Throughout the tour he
was weaving in his own stories and experiences he had while working
there and it really brought a new aspect to the tour that I loved.
He has written a book detailing his time working there called...
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After our tour we both had a mad hankering for some ice cream
so we made our way down the street to the popular *Central Dairy
Ice Cream Parlor. We both walked out of there with a whole pint
of ice cream for under $4. It was magnificent.
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*One thing to note with this place is that you do have to purchase at
least $5 worth of ice cream in order to pay with a card and unless
you get a sundae or something suuuuper fancy you won’t be able to
hit that limit so just make sure to bring cash just in case.
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After getting our ice cream we went and checked into our
hotel, the Days Inn by Wyndham, which I had no complaints
about. For our one night stay it definitely worked.
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Finally, after spending some time in our hotel room we were
starving and made our way out for some BBQ at Sweet Smoke BBQ
in downtown Jefferson City. I got the half rack of ribs topped with
the KC Sweet BBQ sauce which came out on a full size cookie sheet...yes
I said full size cookie sheet….and Abigail had the Carolina On My Mind Sandwich.
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This food was delicious. Not the best BBQ that I have ever
had, but definitely think it is worth a stop if you are craving BBQ while in Jefferson City.
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Have you been to MSP? Would you rather do a history tour or a ghost tour?
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