Missouri State Penitentiary

The oldest continually operating prison west of the Mississippi River, operating for 168 years from 1836 to 2004. Time Magazine called it the bloodiest 47 acres in America. The massive stone complex now offers history tours, ghost tours, and overnight paranormal investigations.

The Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City opened in 1836 and operated for 168 years as the oldest continually operating prison west of the Mississippi River, earning a reputation for brutality so extreme that Time Magazine dubbed it "the bloodiest 47 acres in America." When the prison finally closed in 2004, it had been the site of over two thousand deaths from executions, riots, disease, and inmate violence -- making it one of the most haunted locations in the United States.

Governor John Miller proposed construction of a maximum-security penitentiary in 1831, and the Missouri Legislature authorized the project the following year. From its earliest days, the prison was marked by overcrowding, violence, and suffering on a massive scale. The gas chamber, installed in 1937, executed forty prisoners before the state switched to lethal injection. The dungeon in Hall A -- underground cells with no windows, designed for solitary confinement -- subjected inmates to conditions of absolute sensory deprivation that drove many to madness.

The 1954 riot remains the prison's bloodiest chapter. Inmates, protesting deplorable conditions including contaminated food and rampant abuse, took control of sections of the facility in a violent uprising that resulted in multiple deaths and brought national attention to the horrors within the walls. The riot's aftermath left psychological scars on both surviving inmates and guards that many paranormal researchers believe continue to manifest as spiritual phenomena.

Cell 48 is considered the most intensely haunted location within the prison. An inmate was brutally bludgeoned to death in the cell, and his phantom is reported to remain imprisoned there for eternity, unable to escape even in death. Visitors who enter Cell 48 report an immediate and overwhelming sense of rage and despair, accompanied by the feeling of invisible hands touching or grabbing them. The smell of body odor -- intense and inexplicable in an abandoned building -- permeates the cell.

An apparition of a man has been spotted walking the catwalk above the cell blocks, patrolling a route that guards once walked while monitoring the prisoners below. In the dungeon of Hall A, visitors describe the sensation of someone standing directly beside them in the pitch darkness, close enough to feel body heat, though no one is visible. Shadow figures move through the underground corridors, shifting and darting at the edges of peripheral vision.

Since its closure, the penitentiary has been transformed into a major paranormal tourism destination, offering two-hour ghost tours, overnight paranormal investigations, and historical tours sometimes led by former inmates and guards. The Missouri State Penitentiary has been featured on Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters, and numerous other paranormal television programs, consistently producing evidence that suggests the suffering of thousands of inmates has left a permanent imprint on these stone walls.