Located on the western conclude of Jim Thorpe, you&rsquoll discover one particular of the most popular historic web-sites in&nbspthe Pocono Mountains: the Previous Jail Museum.

The Aged Jail Museum, known during its functioning many years as the Carbon County Jail, housed inmates from 1870 until 1995. Shortly right after it shut, the jail was opened for general public tours and has been open up to visitors at any time due to the fact.

The Carbon County Jail is a gorgeous castle-like structure that was built by Edward Haviland, the son of John Haviland who made the&nbspEastern Point out Penitentiary in Philadelphia. It attributes 27 cells, a warden&rsquos house, a basement dungeon, and additional in the construction.

Touring the jail has been in the vicinity of the top rated of my&nbsplist of factors to do in PA&nbspfor a lot of decades, so I was psyched to last but not least have a chance to visit in the late summer of 2022.

Excursions of the jail depart on a regular basis and, on superior-visitors weekend days, can be very active. In fact, tickets often promote out several hours ahead of the doorways are shut, so make positive to get there early to get your tickets as they are only sold in the reward shop.

Excursions of the Previous Jail Museum final all over thirty minutes and are about divided into three components: a online video, the major cell block, and the dungeon. Soon after the tour, readers can then examine the mobile block and some of the aspect locations of the jail at their possess tempo. basics informed, most people will expend about forty five minutes in this article at the time their tour stars.

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

The Molly Maguires were a mystery modern society of Irish coal miners who had been attempting to battle for far better and safer working ailments. In 1877-1879, six of them were hung in this jail on (quite most likely) trumped-up costs.

The video clip, as well as a good portion of the tour include this interesting labor record from the location.

Even though the video clip is extremely nicely performed, the Television set that it plays on is a bit on the compact facet. The audio could also be enhanced, in particular due to the fact the narrator speaks in a thick Irish accent. Though I don&rsquot assume she is inherently challenging to recognize, the to some degree small volume mixed with the accent means that you have to pay back very careful focus to have an understanding of everything in the video clip.

With any luck ,, they will get a relatively much larger Tv and a better seem program in the future to improve the practical experience in this part of the tour.

As soon as the online video is completed, guides get you into the main part of the jail. This component of the tour consists of the two the main floor of the cell block and the dungeon that&rsquos in the basement, with the specific buy different depending on the other tours that are heading on at the time.

The dungeon is positioned in the basement instantly under the major mobile block and is where by prisoners were housed in solitary confinement from the earliest days of the jail right up until the nineteen eighties.

The spot is quite darkish, though a handful of smaller lights deliver a little bit of illumination in the principal home. Obtaining your mobile cellphone flashlight with you will assistance you see into the precise cells in this portion of the museum.

Although down listed here, guides offer you a little bit of background about this spot, and both how and why prisoners were being held in this space. It surely didn&rsquot seem like a exciting area to locate you.

The primary mobile block of the Old Jail Museum is a two-tale area that characteristics far more than twenty cells.

In the middle of the room, a recreated gallows sits on the specific location exactly where 6 of the Molly Maguires had been hung in the 1870s. Guides offer a large amount of record about this area, both of those related to the Molly Maguires and to other stories from the historical past of the jail.

Even having visited quite a few other historic jails all around PA (these kinds of as&nbspSCI Cresson&nbspand the&nbspOld Jail in Bradford County) I located the stories here to be incredibly interesting.

The moment the guide is completed supplying a little bit of background, guests are authorized to check out the mobile block, as very well as some of the other spots of the jail.

Whilst I seriously relished seeking in the cells, some of which experienced furniture to showcase what it would have been like to have been an inmate there, the most fascinating mobile is #17.

In this mobile, it is mentioned that there is a mysterious handprint that was still left by one of the Molly Maguires as he proclaimed his innocence just prior to his execution. In Recommended Reading to local lore, in spite of this space remaining painted more than several periods, his ghostly handprint stays.

Although this is very likely practically nothing a lot more than a nearby legend, it&rsquos nevertheless an interesting story, and the darkish place on the wall does show up to be a handprint.

Sadly, you can&rsquot enter the cell, which signifies that you can only perspective it from a several ft absent and from the side. You also aren&rsquot authorized to consider photos of it, but you can purchase illustrations or photos of it in the present store or see a significant photo of it on display screen at the close by&nbspMauch Chunk Museum&nbsp(where my photo above comes from).

The other regions of the museum that you can investigate at your possess pace contain the upper levels of the warden&rsquos home (which at the time of my go to contained only empty rooms), the visitation area, the jail kitchen area, and the gals&rsquos jail.

A Couple of Notes about Traveling to

There are two further matters I desired to make be aware of for visiting.

First of all, other than a number of handicapped parking places in their whole lot, there is no close by parking. When traveling to, you&rsquoll need to have to fork out to park in the reduced portion of town near the educate station and walk to the Outdated Jail. It&rsquos about a half-mile wander from the practice station to the museum and is slightly uphill.

Also, inspite of having handicapped parking, there is no straightforward entry into the historic setting up for all those with mobility problems. Even so, if you can take care of a couple of actions, you can at minimum see the principal portion of the developing.