Sublunar Photography

The Factory was constructed in the 1940s for the purpose of contributing to the United States' war effort and it continued long after WWII ended. In fact it contributed to every major war since then, right up until the 1990s when it was finally shut down.

We hiked through the woods for miles before we saw the first structure in the distance. We left the car around noon but by the time we got to the roof of the Power Plant the sun was already beginning its descent on a low arc through the western December sky. By this time, rain clouds were gathering ominously above. From the roof we scanned the horizon to pick out the next objective and saw a cooling tower in the distance to which we figured we'd only have about half an hour of daylight left by the time we got to it. Overgrown roads that hadn't seen traffic in decades guided us to the collection of buildings we picked out from above earlier. The skies were getting dark and it was beginning to rain lightly while the wind picked up and rattled the old structures both near and distant. The first was a compressor building which had been mostly stripped but the control room next to it was full of interesting vintage gauges and mechanical monitoring equipment. The cooling tower provided another vantage point from which to take in the surroundings from above. More skeletons loomed in the distance so we set out to meet them and therein were greeted with more time-worn isolation. We had exhausted the daylight and it was clear that it would be raining more heavily any minute. So in the shadows of the warehouse near the southernmost point we called it a day, checked the maps and set a course for egress. At this point the rain had mostly held back but now there was a steady stream of gunshots very close by. These most likely were the owners of the deer stand we noticed earlier. We made the long hike back to the exit. On the way back the skies cleared a little and the moon had come out and the earth began to glow all around us. The woods were shrouded in darkness but there was just enough light to see where we were going on the path yet dark enough to keep our eyes from adjusting to the shadows on the periphery. As we walked near a massive pile of debris from a demolished structure that had once been made with reinforced concrete over a foot thick, the howl of a large group of nearby coyotes broke the stillness of the night. It sounded like they might have even been somewhere inside the rubble but either way I didn't have time to approximate their source before they stopped howling and the night grew quiet again. Knowing we weren't alone, it now felt like we were being watched from a thousand beady little eyes in the shadows. All in all we had hiked about 10 miles and it was a good way to spend a day/night.

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Chillicothe Women's Prison was originally constructed in 1888 as an industrial home for girls. Their mission statement summarizes their objective of being a place where "girls, removed from the vicious associates and evil influences, may receive careful physical, intellectual and moral training, participate in enjoyment of a true home life, be reformed and become good domestic women prudent in speech and conducts, cleanly industrious and capable housekeepers." Most girls were between the ages of 13 and 17 (but some as young as 10 and others as old as 20) and they were assigned here by juvenile court and county court judges. On average, most girls who were admitted here served three years. The home was predominantly self-sufficient, having produced the food served on site at the home's farm and the clothing the inmates wore was made in their own domestic arts classes. According to the records of the 1918 harvest, their farm produced some "5,685 pounds of cabbage; 752 lbs of beets; 1,170 dozen ears of sweet corn; 692 pounds of eggplant; 453 bushels of tomatoes; 1,943 pounds of greens; 1,741 heads of lettuce; and, 3,737 dozen radishes". Various changes through the 30's, 50's and 60's included demolition of some attractive Victorian architecture, notably the Marmaduke Cottage which was replaced by the modernist utilitarian Blair and Donnelly Cottage housing units which comprise the main prison buildings now visible from the road. The only remaining original buildings include the McReynold's school building and the Power House, neither of which feature prominently in the overall layout of the current site.

Major reforms began to take place regarding institutional housing of inmates by the mid 20th century and of particular effect here was the passage of the Federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 which mandated de-institutionalization of offenders. In 1981, this facility closed as a juvenile institution and reopened as the Chillicothe Correctional Center. But it was soon evident that this site was not efficient nor ideal for an adult correctional facility and as such a new location was built at the cost of $120 Million in 2006. The old prison eventually closed down for good when the last of the 481 inmates were transferred to the new prison at 11:27 pm on December 5th 2008. For several years following, the future of the site was uncertain. The city had considered re-utilization and accepted offers for development. Nothing came of it and by July 2015, the city was accepting demolition bids. The winning contractor began their salvage and demolition of the old Chillicothe Correctional Center in December of 2015.

It was on an unseasonably warm day in December that I set out on this solo expedition. Chillicothe is a four hour drive from Saint Louis and I had no idea whether it would even be doable. Prisons are, by design, generally isolated from their surroundings in such a way as to provide a clear line of sight from both inside and out. Chillicothe was no exception. I looked at every possibly angle ahead of time through satellite imagery and the situation here really didn't look good at all. Not only was there a tall barbed-wire fence to deal with, there was also the little issue of there being no good cover to hide my approach. Houses surrounded to the East and West and a busy road at the North meant the only choice was to see what I could find on the South end of the property. The layout also provided no good place to leave a car that wasn't obvious, so I was stuck parking about a mile away and walking, as inconspicuously as possible, through a residential area. This didn't go unnoticed. Honestly, I would say it was going "pretty bad" at this point but I didn't have reason to bail just yet. And then I reached the creek. Satellite views are still not very high quality in many remote areas but even if they were, they still would have lacked some crucial information regarding this Southern approach.. If the creek wasn't intentionally designed to make crossing as difficult as possible, then it certainly was a coincidence that its banks happened to be nearly straight up and down and completely overrun by some of the nastiest sticker bushes I have ever encountered. Between slipping down the muddy sides and being tripped up by thorny weeds, I was left bleeding from my all over my forearms and i was embedded with stickers in my skin, some of which took a week to remove. And the worst of the trek still wasn't over. Now I had to cross a field in full view of the houses on either side to locate a potential perimeter weakness I observed on a previous reconnaissance. I couldn't tell if anyone saw me or not but I don't think I looked suspicious enough to warrant concern. I mentally rated the situation at this point as roughly "real shitty" but not "time to bail". Perimeter weakness used successfully, I was only inside the prison grounds for a short period of time when one thing led to another and I was cornered in a building on the edge of the property. A worker nearby happened to unknowingly walk straight towards the building I was insde. He evidently sat outside this building for his lunch breaks and this time, he was oblivious to the fact that he wasn't alone. Unable to observe him directly, I waited in a closet with my eyes on the path he would likely take, fairly certain (mostly hoping) that within an hour or so I should see him leave by that route. Sure enough, an hour had passed and he got up and left.

Note: Normally, I would have left out much of the information and obfuscated the name of a location like this (and I would have called this post "Prison #4") but in this case, the prison is being demolished as of this week so there's nothing to hide. In a month or so, the old Chillicothe Correctional Center will cease to exist.

Update: It has been demolished.

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Source(s): 1, 2