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West Virginia Penitentiary


TripAdvisor Traveller Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
TripAdvisor Popularity Index: #2 of 3 attractions in Moundsville
Traveller Description: Built in 1867 and in operation until 1995, this prison offers tours of the cells and the retired electric chair.
Familiar with West Virginia Penitentiary? Write your own description and share what you know with other travellers.
Attraction type: Old jail
Activities: Group tours/walking tour
Address: 818 Jefferson Ave. Moundsville, WV
Tel: 304-845-6200

Reviews you can trust

[ Date ] [ Rating ]
28 Jul 2009
1
person found this review helpful

The ultimate lesson that crime doesn't pay. Seeing this place and hearing the stories of the inmates, beatings and murders is a great lesson/deterrent to crime, at least for a rational person. It's also interesting to note how many beatings and deaths resulted from bad building design and understaffing. Note that the building is not entirely safe. The place is... more

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5 of 5 stars
Canton, Ohio
14 Jul 2009
1
person found this review helpful

We visited Alcatraz in 2005, and – aside from the beautiful San Francisco Bay – that prison has nothing on Moundsville Penitentiary. Alcatraz has names, but Moundsville has numbers - nearly 100 executions, two brutal riots, many murders and (some believe) a few ghosts. It's an eerie tour worth taking - a real-eye opener for the average person who knows... more

5 Oct 2008
2
people found this review helpful

My wife and I took our two teenge children and one of their friends to the Penitentiary. The tour was very informative and interesting. I recommend the $5 booklet sold at the gift shop which covers the history of the museum. It provides some additional information/details to the information that you get on the tour. I think that the most... more

15 Jul 2008
2
people found this review helpful

I took a group of teens here recently, and we all were fascinated by everything. The architecture is worth a visit all by itself. It is a massive, looming structure hand built from handcut stone by the first prisoners. The sheer size is intimidating. After entering, it's rather stuffy and dank, but it's a prison not a hotel. I was... more

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5 of 5 stars
Indian Head, Maryalnd
8 May 2008
1
person found this review helpful

the drive was crazy...i thought we could make it a day trip and come back home...no!! The crazy thing was that the pen was smack dab in the middle of a town...you would never know it was there. But when you pull up you would think that you were in a back in the day castle jail movie. Up close... more

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4 of 5 stars
Martinsburg, WV
8 Aug 2005
4
people found this review helpful

Our tour guide was great. She let the group to take their time and take pictures and look at things and we did not feel rushed. When we got to the area where you could get locked up in a cell if you wanted to know what it felt like, she kept my kids locked up a little bit longer... more

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5 of 5 stars
Missouri
14 Jul 2005
7
people found this review helpful

I thought we would see a dirty old prison (which we did) but what an interesting visit. This old prison has only been closed 10 years, so you can envision real prisoners, etc. A guide takes you around for about 1-1/2 hour tour and you visit the cells, and other areas, while he tells you the history of the building,... more

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West Virginia Penitentiary Address

818 Jefferson Ave., Moundsville, WV
Tel: 304-845-6200