Getting the flavor of … Lockdown in old Missouri, and more

The old Missouri State Penitentiary is getting the Alcatraz treatment and will allow the public to tour "its tiers of cells and wealth of stories” for the first time since opening in 1836.

Lockdown in old Missouri

Alcatraz has nothing on the old Missouri State Penitentiary, said Tom Uhlenbrock in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Located just outside Jefferson City, the historic prison was already 100 years old when the famous San Francisco institution started taking inmates. In fact, when the old state pen opened, in 1836, Andrew Jackson was still president and the Battle of the Alamo was being fought in Texas. Now, the “oldest prison west of the Mississippi,” which was still operating as a full-time detention center up until 2004, is finally getting the Alcatraz treatment. This month the “legendary lockup,” which has housed the likes of Pretty Boy Floyd and James Earl Ray, opens its doors to the public for the first time. Walk the halls and take in the “murder and mayhem” of the jail’s history. Sit in the execution chamber, where 39 men and one woman were killed with cyanide. “With its tiers of cells and wealth of stories,” a tour of the jail is an experience “as fascinating as it is foreboding.”

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