West Virginia Penitentiary
6.2.2008
MOUNDSVILLE, WV - Well, I took my time getting my ass out the door this morning so I had to choose which of the Moundsville attractions I would see once I got there at a quarter to 3 in the afternoon. I figured I’d do the West Virginia Penitentiary (WVP), it would most likely be the longer of the tours I would take so it would make the trip down a bit more worthwhile than it would be otherwise. Plus, I figured I’d have plenty of photo ops.
The outside of the prison is quite impressive. It’s one of those HUGE gothic style prisons that looks like it’s part castle and part fortress. But I guess since it’s a prison that would make sense.
Once you’ve come in the visitors entrance (which is nowhere near the really cool entrance to the building) of WVP you’re taken on a 90 minute guided tour through both the old and new prisons. First you start your tour on the inside of the visitation booths where you learn things like, all artwork at WVP was made by the prisoners. And then the tour begins. We walked through all sorts of rooms and hallways that joined the old and new prisons and were told some fun stories, like all silverware had to be accounted for before a single prisoner was allowed out of the cafeteria and just about every room had a little room where a guard with a shotgun sat and watched over the inmates.
Personally I liked the old prison better than the new one, and luckily we spent a decent amount of time both in and out of the old side of the prison. According to our guide, Erin, this is where the really nasty prisoners were brought. The had tiny cells (not that the new prison had bigger cells, because it did not. In fact one of the big reasons WVP was closed in the 90’s was because the 5′ X 7′ cells were considered “cruel and unusual punishment.”), and only allowed out for an hour a day. I’m going to venture that they weren’t allowed craft time either.
The administration building was really cool, and I would have loved to have had more time to spend poking around. There was the original entrance, the mail room, the original visitation rooms, and the stairs that led to the warden’s quarters. It kills me that the warden’s quarters was off limits.
When you finally get to the “new” prison, which honestly is a lot like the “old” prison, you have the opportunity to be put in lock down. Everyone on the tour is asked to enter a cell and then everyone is locked in simultaneously. I image claustrophobic’s chose to pass on this part of the tour, especially since you spend about 5 minutes inside listening to a lecture about the new prison.
Finally you end up in the museum where you get to see various prison tools and what-not that once inhabited the prison. There’s an entire wall of weapons fashioned by the inmates which is a fan favorite. It reminds me of the drawers of things people have swallowed at the Mütter Museum.
All in all it was a nice tour. I think I would have rather had the freedom of the walking about WVP at my own pace. I’ve done the tour at Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary (ESP) which was nice ’cause they give you a recording of Steve Buscemi telling you all sorts of things about the prison and wander about on your own. Although it was nice to have a tour guide you could talk to and forced you to learn interesting trivia like the fact that Charles Manson’s mom was incarcerated at WVP, it would have been nice to spend a little more time peeking in the rooms of the Administration building. Seriously, I had to run and catch up.
