Most Haunted Places in America: Old Wyoming State Penitentiary (The Old Pen)

Old Wyoming State Penitentiary, now simply referred to as “Old Pen”, was the final home of many a prisoner; some who were scheduled to take their last breath within its walls, but many more who were not. It is now recognized as one of the most haunted prisons in the country according to the multitude of reports of paranormal activity at the Old Wyoming State Penitentiary.

Old Pen was the first penitentiary ever built in the state of Wyoming, constructed back in 1888. Due to lack of funding, however, thirteen years would pass before the first convict ever stepped foot into one of the original 104 cells (which later became Cell Block A).

Old Pen opened in 1901 with rather horrific conditions for the inmates. There was no running water or even electricity and the heating was derisory at best. Wyoming is well known for its atrocious winter weather, so this would be an issue for some years to come.

Overcrowding was an invariable dilemma through the existence of the prison. Over the 80 years Old Pen was open, approximately 35,000 convicts were imprisoned, including the incarceration of 11 females before 1909. From there on out, only Wyoming’s worst male offenders were brought to Old Wyoming State Penitentiary.

New additions were built in 1904 to add 32 cells onto the block, which helped a little. The “death house” was built in 1916 to house death-row inmates. Cell Block B would not be constructed until 1950, which included solitary confinement bunks and hot running water, though Cell Block A’s prisoners would continue to suffer without hot water until 1978, just three years before the prison was finally closed down.

There were plenty of outrageous acts performed on prisoners in the form of “discipline”. A “punishment pole” was in place legally until 1930. Prisoners were handcuffed to the pole and whipped with rubber hoses. There was a particular solitary confinement area known as the “dungeon” where exceptionally bad prisoners were detained. The guards stopped using the dungeon in 1960 when two inmates were found frozen to death within its confines.

Old Wyoming State Penitentiary conducted multiple forms of carrying out the death penalty over its years of operation. The first two executions were carried out by travelling gallows. When the death house was built, it consisted of 8 cells and a permanent indoor gallows, where another 7 men were hung until 1936, when the gallows were replaced with a gas chamber. 5 more inmates would die by hydrocyanic gas in this chamber throughout the years.

If that weren’t enough to produce overwhelming paranormal activity at Old Pen, what about the countless prisoners who died at the cruel hands of other inmates, and sometimes the guards themselves or just the conditions endured? There is no official documentation as to how many men really died in Old Wyoming State Penitentiary. A few of the tragic tales are well known, however.

One of the more dominating stories is that of an inmate at Old Pen who was actually hanged twice by his fellow convicts. The story goes that they attempted to hang him once, but failed. He survived the attack (likely with terrible rope burns). So a short time later, they strung him up once more and tossed him off the roof. He wasn’t so lucky the second time.

The showers were the location of many brutal assaults, many of which resulted in the death of at least one prisoner. The showers now emit a distinctly cold air about them, more so than anywhere else in the Old Pen.

Death row, and the gas chamber itself, are both teeming with paranormal activity. The Old Wyoming State Penitentiary tourists – yes, it’s a grim historic museum of sorts now, open to the public – have reported many strange noises, voices, whispers and apparitions that always seem to disappear around the corner just before you can get a good look at them. Simply walking through the building there have been numerous claims of an inexplicably eerie, almost threatening feeling; as if they were aggressively unwelcome.

Old Pen has been shut down for about 3 decades now, its doors finally closing in 1981. The structure suffered a lot of damage in 1987 when a low budget film entitled “Prison” was shot there (Viggo Mortensen’s first real acting gig), so in 1988, a joint powers board took over ownership of the Old Wyoming State Penitentiary and rebranded it Wyoming Frontier Prison. Established as an official museum, “Old Pen” is now included among the National Registry of Historic Places, visited by ghost hunters and seekers of paranormal phenomenon on a fairly regular basis.

Related posts:

1. Ghost Video at Eastern State Penitentiary
2. Paranormal Activity at Old Idaho Penitentiary
3. Paranormal Activity at the Sheeley House Tavern
4. Paranormal Activity at Pennhurst State School
5. Paranormal Activity at Holy Cross Sanatorium