Our Opinion: Tours resume as prison site continues to deteriorate

Saturday, February 11, 2012

The Missouri State Penitentiary tour season opened Friday, only days after Jefferson City voters defeated a proposal that would have financed some renovations at the site.

New tour options have been added this year in an effort to capitalize on surging popularity in 2011.

Tour attendance last year topped 17,000 visitors, a 47 percent increase over the prior year, according to Ryan Winkler, communications manager for the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, which schedules the tours.

Added this year will be public overnight paranormal investigations, held monthly.

Area residents may remember investigators from the television show “Ghost Hunters” visited the prison last year to film a program for the SyFy channel.

The public overnight venture will allow members of the public to share a similar experience from 10 p.m. Saturday until 6 a.m. Sunday on the last weekend of each month.

Age restrictions and ticket prices may be found on the website, www.MissouriPenTours.com, which also contains information about other tours.

Also new this year will be a three-hour history tour, which will amplify the historical review provided during the popular two-hour history tours.

These and previously offered tours are gearing up as the fate of historic structures at the prison site remains in limbo.

Rejection of the Transformation sale tax negates more than $3 million in revenues dedicated to renovate three housing units.

Also included was money to relocate the gas chamber at MSP. We encourage redevelopment officials to reconsider that proposal. Some of our readers correctly observed that relocation might devalue the historic aspect of the gas chamber. They also pointed out visitors who travel distances for a walking tour of MSP will not be daunted by added steps.

In the aftermath of the vote, Gov. Jay Nixon has said the state will pursue plans to clean up the site. He said the state was awaiting the outcome of the vote to determine if its cleanup would dovetail with city efforts, but now will proceed independently.

We are acutely aware the state budget — which again includes cuts and layoffs — holds little prospect for financing prison site renovations at this time.

Waiting to begin, however, is not timely.

Redevelopment will not be possible if neglect reduces the site to rubble.

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Graceful 1 year, 3 months ago

If it can't pay for itself it needs to be torn down. That is the prudent thing to do.

asb 1 year, 3 months ago

Well, even if gays shouldn't marry, cats and dogs will be sleeping together . .. Grace made sense . . .

kentheco 1 year, 3 months ago

How about we move the gas chamber to the Capitol grounds and set it up next to a hangman’s’ gallows so visitors can see how Missouri used put people to death. Better yet, let us bring back public executions since current methods do not deter crime. I hope people realize that I am joking, but then again seriously, why should taxpayers be forced to pay so that others can satisfy their morbid curiosities. What do we do next, strap mannequins in the chairs of the gas chamber?

JCLifer 1 year, 3 months ago

No, its fun to sit in the gas chamber chairs and get your picture taken!
What could be better than making money off of equipment that was used to kill people? Death is fun!

JCsleeper 1 year, 3 months ago

Wonder how many of those 17,000 folks were locals that didn't really add to the tourism dollars? It might be interesting for some folks, but some may get the creeps thinking about all the sadness, evil, misery, suffering and death that took place there. As far as ghost TV shows, it looks like a bunch of adolescents running around scaring each other. This eysore next to the new courthouseneeds to be condemmed and razed.

Gotigers 1 year, 3 months ago

I respectfully disagree. That prison is amazing. If done right it could be a huge tourism boost. Look at Alacatraz(our prison was 100 years old when Alacatraz opened) and the draw it is.

kentheco 1 year, 3 months ago

Gotigers, I have to disagree with your opinion that MSP could be a huge tourism boost. First, Alcatraz, funded by the Federal Government as a National Park, is open every day except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day with tours starting as early as 9:00am. Second, Ticket prices range from $16 to $33 each, depending on type of tour (Early Bird, Day, or Night) Third, the biggest difference is that San Francisco, where the tours start, hosted over 15 million visitors in 2010 and has over twice the population of St Louis. Do you believe that either the state or Jefferson City can afford the money necessary to restore and maintain the prison under current fiscal restraints? To pay for the costs of operating, maintaining, staffing, and security with ticket sales, would most likely result in tickets being too expensive for most visitors. Then there is the question of what, beside the State Capitol, is there to do? San Francisco in addition to having the Golden Gate Bridge, is one of the top tourist destinations in the world, ranking 33rd out of the 100 most visited cities worldwide, there just isn’t anything here that can compare.

locotony 1 year, 3 months ago

The main reason they want to move the gas chamber is because it is in the area that the city wants as potential land for their conference center. I've been on the tour, it is a trek down there and for some older folks might have a problem with the hike there and back but they could get a van to use to take folks down there and back. To JCsleeper the prison is a historic landmark in this city and parts of it already were razed to build the new courthouse, but the buildings that are left do need to be preserved as this city has ripped so many historic structures downi n the name of progress that we can't afford to let this happen to another.

JCsleeper 1 year, 3 months ago

Perhaps if preservation is to take place, it should be done with private funds and not extraced from taxpayers, as noted by the defeat of the Transormation sales tax. Yes there are many historic structures in JC, but seem to lack funds for proper restoration and maintenance. Further deteriorization results in blight. If they can't be maintained, they need to be razed for a more productive use of the land.

JCLifer 1 year, 3 months ago

Whay JC Sleeper says!

Knock the old eyesore down. All it is now is a decaying monument to pain, suffering and evil. After the initial curiosity is over, no one will want to see it. I went on the tour twice. Won't go back. Nothing to see there except a horrible place for people to have to work there. It demonstrates well how this state has always been a bottom feeder low dollar employer and provider of inferior services.

Mr_Grimm 1 year, 3 months ago

"It demonstrates well how this state has always been a bottom feeder low dollar employer and provider of inferior services. "

Its a prison, its should be inferior service. Kentheco was right on one thing, our current system doesn't scare anyone. If prison is the worst we have and it isnt a deterrent something is wrong. Maybe public punishment wouldn't be such a bad idea. Like covering thieves in a bright blue body paint (on local live tv as well) that doesnt wear off for a few months so every where they go everyone knows their a thief! The prison id old and ugly, but it is a part of not just Missouri but American history and some parts should be saved.

asb 1 year, 3 months ago

Tear the prison down. It was a hotel of horror and misery. Making money off a gas chamber for God's sake! It was abandoned partly because it could not be maintained, even with taxpayer money supplied per prisoners. The fools spending money looking for ghosts can just as easily do so in an outhouse. The GhostHunter staff are actors, not investigators of anything but the wallets of the superstitious. Is there some way to incorporate all or part of a structure into an historic usefullness? I haven't heard of one since this whole thing started. The new Health Department building looks enough like a prison building that tours and ghost wackos could be accomodated there and nobody would suffer. The prison site could be the core of a long term economic engine, or it could fester and crumble and encourage more of the substandard and sub-code rot that property owners are content to rent to the poor while waiting for a financial heyday. Make a pile of rocks from it and let people pay to make them smaller.

JCsleeper 1 year, 3 months ago

History and toursim are fine, but should not be the main focus of economics for the area. The chamber and council would do well to devote their efforts to entice employers with productive career possiblities to the area. Real economic growth and attraction-retention of youth will come from gainful employment opportunities, not from feelin' the history. JC and its old buildings are not going to be a major tourist destination. Some folks would probably rather go to Big-O Tires.

asb 1 year, 3 months ago

This city is almost entirely tied to the state government, and as long as that government is bound up in a closet by conservatives, so will our economy be bound. Toursim and history, on the other hand, are often good alternate economies for provincial capitals; just not based on prisons and ghost poo sniffers.

JCLifer 1 year, 3 months ago

We blew it by not getting a casino. We could have had a much nicer one than Booneville if we negotiated well and coordinated some of the projects with it. The nearly 1000 job with average pay higher than stat government's would have been very helpful.

The only thing left would be for us to push hard for an expansion of the Callaway Nuke plant, and for us to try to get in on that action for all the workers and managers, as well as all the housing, products, and services it would provide.

Without a lot of high-paying JOBS without depending on state government, lawyers, and accountants, all this transformation talk is just a fairy tale.

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