Interesting facts about the Missouri State Penitentiary

Our tour guide had many stories to tell about people who spent time in the institution during the years it was open, from 1836 to 2004.  Pretty Boy Floyd spent time there after he was apprehended for robbing a bank.  

Sonny Liston once called this cell home.  

The man in this picture, "Firebug" Johnson, kept trying to set fire to the prison.  As a last resort, they put him in the dungeon. 

Yes, a real dungeon.  "Firebug" spent years there.  

Kate Richards O'Hare, a socialist, made the mistake of giving an anti-war speech in 1917; it was against the law to undermine war efforts, so she was sentenced to five years in the Missouri State Prison.  She published two books while she was incarcerated, and finally had her sentence commuted by President Coolidge.  She went on to become the assistant prison director of a California prison.  

James Earl Ray escaped from the prison at Jefferson City in a bread truck, and a  year later shot and killed Martin Luther King.  

The couple who kidnapped and killed Bobby Greenlease in 1953 died side by side in the gas chamber at this prison.  

I heard so many interesting stories yesterday, my mind can't hold them all.  Seriously, if you have the chance, take this tour.  You have to buy the tickets ahead of time on the website, because the group size has to be limited.  We took the two-hour tour; there is also a four-hour tour, but I was afraid it would be more walking than I wanted to do; besides, it cost a lot more money.  Now I almost wish I had gone ahead and spent the money, because I could have listened to the stories all day long.  

 This building opened for business in 1836, the first prison west of the Mississippi.  If only those walls could talk!