Staycation Directory

Staycation Activity: West Virginia State Penitentiary Tour

May 5th, 2010

Moundsville, West Virginia

The West Virginia State Penitentiary sprawls across 11 acres. The prisoners built it, heavy rock by heavy rock, beginning in 1866. When you watch someone sentenced to “hard labor” in a movie, this place is what the judge had in mind.

That approach to justice lasted until the mid-1980s, when the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the prison’s 5×7 foot cells were cruel and unusual punishment — particularly because two or more convicts were often crammed into them. It was the beginning of the end for the prison as a prison. The WV State Pen closed in 1995.

Now the penitentiary is open again — as a tourist and local attraction. It also occasionally stages mock prison riots (for guard training), and hosts a surprisingly popular sleepover “ghost hunt” once a month, where people spend the night in the empty, unlit buildings.

Our guide, Tom, loves his job. He can easily stretch the standard 45-minute tour into one twice that length, peppered with stories of prison riots and revenge murders and of how the inmates in North Hall — known as “The Alamo” — would hurl urine and vomit onto the guards.

For such a vast, empty place, the prison is loud — concrete and steel don’t muffle sound. It’s clean but ugly, even if some prisoners did try to spruce the place up a bit. We notice a framed painting on the wall depicting the world’s longest single arch steel span bridge (which is downstate in Fayetteville). “Danny Lehman painted that,” Tom tells us. “He got stabbed through the eye in North Hall. Punctured his brain.”

If this is your kinda thing you will have tons of fun!

StaycationDirectory

Staycation Definition and History
A staycation (also spelled stay-cation, stacation, or staykation) is a neologism for a period of time in which an individual or family stays at home and relaxes at home or takes day trips from their home to area attractions. Staycations have achieved high popularity in the US during the financial crisis of 2007–2009 in which unemployment levels and gas prices were high.Staycations also became a popular phenomenon in the UK in 2009 as a weak pound made overseas holidays significantly more expensive.The term was added to the 2009 version of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Common activities of a staycation include use of the backyard pool, visits to local parks and museums, and attendance at local festivals. Some staycationers also like to follow a set of rules, such as setting a start and end date, planning ahead, and avoiding routine, with the goal of creating the feel of a traditional vacation.
Benefits of a staycation
Staycations are far less costly than a vacation involving traveling. There are no lodging costs and travel expenses are minimal. Costs may include transportation for local trips, dining, and local attractions. “The American Automobile Association said the average North American vacation will cost $244 per day for two people for lodging and meals… Add some kids and airfare, and a 10-day vacation could top $10,000″. Staycations do not have the stress associated with travel, such as packing, long drives, or waits at airports. Staycations may be of economic benefit to some local businesses, who get customers from the area providing them with business. In 2008, the tourism bureaus of many U.S. cities also began promoting staycations for their residents to help replace the tourism dollars lost from a drop in out-of-town visitors.