Missouri State Penitentiary

The Missouri State Penitentiary opened in Jefferson City in 1836, partly to help the young town secure its status as the state capital. Its first prisoners made bricks, and over the next century and a half its limestone walls grew to enclose about 47 acres above the Missouri River. By the time it closed in 2004 it was the oldest operating prison west of the Mississippi, and it had held some of the best-known names in American history: anarchist Emma Goldman and socialist Kate Richards O’Hare, jailed for opposing the First World War; boxer Sonny Liston; the bank robber Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd; and James Earl Ray, who escaped in 1967 hidden in a bread truck and the following year assassinated Martin Luther King Jr.

Its history was violent. In 1967, after a spate of serious assaults inside the walls in 1963–64, Guy magazine dubbed it “the bloodiest 47 acres in America” – a line often misattributed to TIME – and the tour operators still use the nickname. In 1954 a riot left four inmates dead, 29 people injured and buildings burned. Between 1938 and 1965 dozens of people were executed in its gas chamber, and the state’s last execution at the prison took place in 1989 before death row moved to Potosi. Conditions in the old “dungeon” cells – windowless stone chambers below Housing Unit 4 – were notorious, and today’s tours make a point of describing how women and African American prisoners were treated.

After the inmates moved to a new prison in 2004, the old walls were opened for history tours and, soon after, ghost tours and overnight investigations. Some of the guides are former staff. Tom Wells, a guard from 1989, told the Jefferson City News Tribune that one sunny afternoon during count he saw a long-haired blond man in a white T-shirt walk out of a door into a locked area and vanish – and that an inmate watching nearby said he had seen him too, and that no such man was housed there. The prison has since featured on Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures and Destination Fear.

The site faces an uncertain future: the city and county have invested in a riverside market on part of the property, but a $15 million state request to preserve the deteriorating buildings was cut from the budget in 2025. A Victims Memorial at the entrance honours the people harmed by crimes committed by those held inside.

Guides and visitors report figures in prison clothing, footsteps and voices in empty cellblocks, cell doors slamming, being touched or tapped, cold spots and shadows in the dungeon cells. Some tour guides tell visitors that blondes and redheads are more likely to be touched.

The Housing Unit 4 dungeon cells and upper walks, Housing Unit 3’s death row and basement, the gas chamber, Housing Unit 1 and the upper yard. Ghost tours begin around sunset.

The prison appears on Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures and Destination Fear, and in true-crime histories of James Earl Ray and Sonny Liston. Its tours are among Jefferson City’s biggest attractions, and a museum across the street tells the prison’s history.