W.Va. Penitentiary at Moundsville focus of strange history

The previous West Virginia State Penitentiary at Moundsville, West Virginia, in Marshall County, was a castellated gothic-style jail in operation from 1876 till 1995. It’s now a vacationer attraction well-liked with historians and paranormal fanatics.

In 1863, West Virginia had solely simply seceded from Virginia and suffered a scarcity of public establishments, together with prisons. Governor Arthur I. Boreman lobbied the Legislature for a penitentiary however was repeatedly denied. It directed him as a substitute to ship prisoners out of the state and to county jails, which was additionally insufficient.

After 9 inmates escaped in 1865, the press took up the trigger, and in 1866 the Legislature authorised the acquisition of 10 acres simply exterior Moundsville and roughly 12 miles south of Wheeling, then the state capital.

The constructing’s Gothic Revival structure “exhibited nice power” and “conveyed to the thoughts a cheerless clean indicative of the distress” which awaited the sad being who entered inside its partitions,” in keeping with a quote from Abandoned Online.

The primary constructing raised was the fanciful North Wagon Gate, accomplished in 1876, constructed with hand-worked sandstone quarried regionally. Officers used jail labor, because it did within the north and south cell-block areas. The South Corridor contained 224 four-by-seven-foot cells. The North Corridor included a chapel, kitchen, hospital, and eating space. A four-story tower connecting the 2 wings included administrative places of work, area for feminine inmates, and dwelling quarters for the warden and his household.

The design of the Moundsville facility is much like that of the state jail in Joliet, Illinois, in-built 1858 with turrets and battlements although scaled right down to half the dimensions. The unique architectural designs have been misplaced.

The jail was nearly self-sufficient, and circumstances by way of the early twentieth century had been thought of ample. Inmates commonly attended courses, and a faculty and library had been accomplished in 1900 to assist reform and educate inmates. A jail coal mine opened a mile away in 1921, and a few inmates had been allowed to remain on the mine’s camp.

Nonetheless, circumstances worsened by way of the years, and the jail was ranked among the many most violent by the U.S. Division of Justice. A recreation room generally known as “The Sugar Shack” was notorious as a haven for playing, preventing, and rape.

Thirty-six homicides had been confirmed on the jail, together with the butchering of R.D. Wall, inmate No. 44670, who was shivved by three prisoners in 1929 after snitching on fellow inmates.

Labor activist Eugene V. Debs served in 1919 on costs of violating the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917. In 1983, convicted multiple-murderer Charles Manson requested unsuccessfully to be transferred to Moundsville to be close to household.

In 1929, the state determined to double the dimensions of the penitentiary to remedy overcrowding. The cells had been too small to carry three prisoners at a time: two prisoners would sleep within the bunks, whereas a 3rd slept on a mattress on the ground. Utilizing jail labor, the state accomplished this enlargement in 1959.

Fifteen prisoners escaped in 1979. Ronald Turney Williams, serving time for the 1975 homicide of Sergeant David Lilly, of Beckley, West Virginia, stole a guard’s weapon. On the streets of Moundsville, he met off-duty State Trooper Philip S. Kesner, who was driving previous the jail along with his spouse. Kesner tried to take motion. The escapees pulled him from his automotive, and Williams fatally shot Kesner, who fired on the fleeing suspects.

Williams remained at giant for greater than a yr, sending taunting notes to authorities. Throughout that point, he murdered John Bunchek in Scottsdale, Arizona, throughout a theft. After a shootout with a federal agent in New York Metropolis in 1981, he was apprehended and returned to West Virginia to finish a number of life sentences. Arizona had additionally sought his extradition for execution, however as of 2018, he remained in West Virginia custody.

By 1986, safety on the jail had grow to be free. It was derisively known as a “cons” jail: a lot of the locks on the cells had been picked, and inmates roamed freely within the halls. Poor plumbing and bug infestations precipitated the fast unfold of illness. The jail was holding greater than 2,000 males and crowding was a difficulty.

At round 5:30 p.m., 20 “The Avengers” inmates stormed the mess corridor and rapidly overpowered 5 officers. The rioters held knives to their throats and handcuffed them. All through a two-day revolt, three inmates had been killed by different rioting inmates.

In response to authors Bert Useem and Peter Kimball within the guide “States of Siege: U.S. Jail Riots, 1971–1986,” the rioters misplaced management of the revolt and commenced to battle amongst themselves, and negotiations with jail officers had been instantly sought.

“The inmates who initiated the riot weren’t ready to take cost of it,” Useem and Kimball wrote. “Danny Lehman, the Avengers’ president, was rapidly agreed upon as finest fitted to negotiating with authorities and presenting the calls for to the media.” Nonetheless, Lehman was not one of many males who instigated the riot.

Governor Arch A. Moore, Jr., traveled to the penitentiary to speak with inmates and arrange requirements on which jail authorities would construct. Nonetheless, the state Supreme Court docket dominated that confinement to the small cells constituted merciless and weird punishment, and the jail was closed. Most inmates had been transferred to the Mount Olive Correctional Complicated close to Montgomery, West Virginia, in Fayette County.

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Executions

Ninety-four males had been executed on the jail from 1899 to 1959. Hanging was the tactic of execution earlier than 1950, and 85 males met their destiny on the gallows. Harry Powers, one of many first serial killers in trendy historical past, was hanged right here in 1932.

The general public might attend hangings, which had been public till 1931, when Frank Hyer was executed for murdering his spouse. When the trapdoor opened beneath him, his full weight pulled on the noose, and he was decapitated. Attendance at hangings was afterward by invitation solely. The final man executed by hanging, Bud Peterson, from Logan County, was buried within the jail’s cemetery as a result of his household refused to assert his physique.

Electrocution grew to become the technique of execution in 1951. The electrical chair, nicknamed “Previous Sparky,” was constructed by inmate Paul Glenn. 9 males had been electrocuted earlier than the state prohibited capital punishment totally in 1965. The unique chair is now on show within the facility and is included within the official tour.

After the jail closed, the Moundsville Financial Improvement Council secured a 25-year lease on the complicated, a part of which is maintained as a facility for coaching legislation enforcement and corrections personnel by way of mock-riot drills.

To help groups in planning and executing emergency eventualities, the W.Va. Excessive Expertise Consortium Basis commissioned an interactive 3D mannequin of the penitentiary. It made the software program out there to the general public earlier than conducting a 2009 mock riot.

Tours are available for guests who want to discover the landmark and its historical past and examine alleged paranormal exercise there. Some journey guides declare the jail among the many most haunted in the USA.

Stories of supernatural phenomena embrace sightings of phantom inmates by former guards and legends of a “shadow man” that wanders the premises. Guests incessantly report chilly spots and unexplained noises, together with voices.

The jail was positioned on half of a big Native American burial floor that occupied a lot of the rise above Grave Creek, which grew to become Moundsville. Many prehistoric earthworks, together with burial mounds, had been positioned all through the city. The biggest prehistoric burial mound in jap North America, the Grave Creek Mound, is positioned reverse the primary entrance to the jail constructing.

A haunted attraction known as the “Dungeon of Horrors” can be arrange on the former jail throughout Halloween.

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