Touring the Outstanding Outdated Jail Museum in Jim Thorpe, PA

Found on the western end of Jim Thorpe, you&rsquoll uncover one particular of the most well-liked historic websites in&nbspthe Pocono Mountains: the Old Jail Museum.

The Outdated Jail Museum, recognised in the course of its operating several years as the Carbon County Jail, housed inmates from 1870 until finally 1995. Before long following it closed, the jail was opened for public excursions and has been open up to website visitors at any time since.

The Carbon County Jail is a beautiful castle-like structure that was created by Edward Haviland, the son of John Haviland who created the&nbspEastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. It attributes 27 cells, a warden&rsquos home, a basement dungeon, and additional in the structure.

Touring the jail has been in the vicinity of the major of my&nbsplist of factors to do in PA&nbspfor quite a few many years, so I was thrilled to last but not least have a prospect to stop by in the late summer season of 2022.

Excursions of the jail go away regularly and, on high-website traffic weekend days, can be fairly hectic. In my response , tickets sometimes promote out hours ahead of the doors are shut, so make certain to arrive early to get your tickets as they are only marketed in the gift store.

Tours of the Outdated Jail Museum past all over 30 minutes and are about divided into a few sections: a video, the most important mobile block, and the dungeon. Immediately after the tour, site visitors can then take a look at the mobile block and some of the facet locations of the jail at their own speed. All explained to, most people will devote around 45 minutes right here once their tour stars.

The jail&rsquos video clip is about 10 minutes very long and offers an overview of the background of the jail, and, in unique, the Molly Maguires.

The Molly Maguires were a top secret society of Irish coal miners who had been trying to fight for superior and safer operating conditions. In 1877-1879, 6 of them were being hung in this jail on (incredibly probable) trumped-up prices.

The video, as properly as a very good part of the tour address this intriguing labor background from the region.

When the video clip is quite very well accomplished, the Tv that it performs on is a bit on the modest aspect. The seem could also be enhanced, especially given that the narrator speaks in a thick Irish accent. While I don&rsquot believe she is inherently hard to understand, the rather minimal quantity blended with the accent signifies that you have to shell out cautious focus to realize anything in the video clip.

Ideally, they will get a relatively larger Television and a better sound process in the long run to increase the working experience in this portion of the tour.

The moment the movie is concluded, guides choose you into the primary part of the jail. This aspect of the tour features both the primary floor of the mobile block and the dungeon that&rsquos in the basement, with the specific get different depending on the other excursions that are likely on at the time.

The dungeon is situated in the basement instantly under the primary mobile block and is the place prisoners have been housed in solitary confinement from the earliest days of the prison until eventually the nineteen eighties.

The place is fairly dark, nevertheless a handful of compact lights supply a little bit of illumination in the key area. Obtaining your cell cell phone flashlight with you will aid you see into the real cells in this part of the museum.

Though down here, guides offer you a little bit of background about this spot, and equally how and why prisoners were being held in this region. It definitely didn&rsquot audio like a enjoyable location to obtain yourself.

The main mobile block of the Old Jail Museum is a two-story area that options additional than 20 cells.

In the middle of the room, a recreated gallows sits on the correct spot where by six of the Molly Maguires were being hung in the 1870s. Guides supply a lot of history about this region, both equally associated to the Molly Maguires and to other stories from the history of the jail.

Even possessing visited quite a few other historic jails about PA (this kind of as&nbspSCI Cresson&nbspand the&nbspOld Jail in Bradford County) I identified the stories listed here to be extremely intriguing.

As soon as the manual is accomplished presenting a little bit of heritage, readers are authorized to take a look at the mobile block, as well as some of the other locations of the jail.

Whilst I definitely liked on the lookout in the cells, some of which experienced furnishings to showcase what it would have been like to have been an inmate there, the most interesting mobile is #17.

In this cell, it is mentioned that there is a mysterious handprint that was left by one particular of the Molly Maguires as he proclaimed his innocence just prior to his execution. In accordance to local lore, despite this spot becoming painted above many occasions, his ghostly handprint remains.

Whilst this is very likely nothing much more than a regional legend, it&rsquos nonetheless an intriguing tale, and the dim location on the wall does seem to be a handprint.

However, you can&rsquot enter the cell, which implies that you can only view it from a few toes absent and from the side. You also aren&rsquot allowed to take images of it, but you can acquire photographs of it in the gift shop or see a huge photograph of it on screen at the nearby&nbspMauch Chunk Museum&nbsp(exactly where my image earlier mentioned arrives from).

The other regions of the museum that you can explore at your individual speed include things like the upper concentrations of the warden&rsquos dwelling (which at the time of my go to contained only vacant rooms), the visitation area, the jail kitchen, and the girls&rsquos jail.

A Couple of Notes about Checking out

There are two added factors I required to make be aware of for visiting.

Initially of all, other than a handful of handicapped parking spots in their large amount, there is no nearby parking. When viewing, look at more info &rsquoll require to fork out to park in the lower part of town close to the practice station and stroll to the Old Jail. It&rsquos about a 50 percent-mile walk from the coach station to the museum and is marginally uphill.

Also, regardless of obtaining handicapped parking, there is no effortless accessibility into the historic developing for these with mobility troubles. Even so, if you can take care of a number of techniques, you can at least see the most important part of the setting up.