Sublunar Photography

Prison #7 operated for about 80 years and closed in the 2010's.

The Groundhog Incident

I was minding my own business exploring this large prison alone and had just gone inside a smaller outbuilding, went up to the second floor and encountered the devil in the shape of a groundhog.

The groundhog was sitting in the middle of the hallway of the second floor and staring at me with a fiery and intense anger burning in his eyes. I think we were both equally surprised to meet inside this building and especially on the second floor. He bade me to depart at once but I delayed heeding his warning. I checked out a couple rooms on my side of the building and left him to his side but he was very unsettled and making a commotion the whole time. We crossed paths again and he warned me a second time, but "nay", I thought, "I shall stay for you are but a groundhog and nothing more." Oh, what a fool I had been!

And so it was that I descended the stairs to complete my exploration of this building on the ground floor when I heard the meaty menace angrily plopping down the stairs after me. He stopped near the top of the last flight of stairs. With chest puffed up and with a murderous countenance, he looked me directly in the eyes and he warned me, thrice, to begone or be-perished like so many of his foes who have fallen before him. He seemed to elicit a sick pleasure in recalling the gory demise his victims endured at the chisel shaped ends of his large incisors and it was at this moment that I realized this was no ordinary groundhog. I paused a moment to reflect upon his words. I decided to move towards the door because I didn't want to be cornered by him in case he was rabid or had some other disease, or demonic possession, to explain why a groundhog-shaped devil came to inhabit the second floor of this old building. Sensing my fear and utilizing his advantage on the high ground, the ornery abomination made his move. He charged at me down the stairs -not walking but running down- directly at me. I ran out the front door as he taunted me with threatening language and obscene gestures, the likes of which common decency forbids description thereof. His foul temperament overshadowed even the sunny day and the bright blue skies in which we now found ourselves outside the front door of his gloomy gothic abode. I turned around on the front porch and shouted "Fuck you, you beaver ass lookin' bitch!"

I then ran until I couldn't run anymore. I saw his face behind every blade of grass and in every doorway I passed. The winds carried his gamey odor to the furthest corners of the prison yard. I wished I was far away from this cursed place. Even still when I close my eyes, I am haunted by his beady eyes which pierce my tortured soul. In my dreams I am forever running in slow-motion from a bloodthirsty rodent with an insatiable lust for violence and a mastery of stinging personal insults which he delivers with unreasonable amounts of attitude and sass.

The Clay County Jail in Green Cove Springs, Florida, was built in 1894. Seven executions were performed onsite between 1894-1912. Several documented escape attempts were also performed here and some of them were successful. It was decommissioned in 1972 and today it is a museum and archives research center.

Green Cove Springs Atlantic Coast Line Train Station

The Clay County Jail site includes an historic train station and train cars with assorted artifacts. This train station was relocated from the nearby community of Elkton where it was originally built sometime in the 1880-1890's. It served the Atlantic Coast Line which was a US Class I railroad from 1900-1967 at which point it merged with a rival and became the Seaboard Coast Line. The Seaboard Coast Line existed until the 1980's after which, following various mergers and consolidations, it became part of what is now known as CSX Transportation.

Green Cove Springs Old Courthouse

The Clay County Jail site is located on what is called the "historic triangle" whose most prominent buidling is the old Green Cove Springs Courthouse which was constructed in 1890. The land on which it was built was donated by the Borden family whose wealth was the result of their eponymous dairy company. The Old Courthouse is still used occasionally for juvenile cases among other things.