Missouri State Penitentiary

Mark Schreiber gave a tour of the historic Missouri State Penitentiary where he served as a deputy warden until the building, the oldest operating penal facility west of the Mississippi River, was closed September 15, 2004. Opened in 1836, it was called “the bloodiest 47 acres in America” in the 1960s due to the number of stabbings there. Mr. Schreiber talked about the prison’s history, life there, prison conditions, different approaches toward inmate rehabilitation, and some famous prisoners.

C-SPAN’s Local Content Vehicles (LCVs) made a stop in their “2012 LCV Cities Tour” in Jefferson City, Missouri, on June 4-7 to feature the history and literary life of the community. Working with the Mediacom local cable affiliate, they visited literary and historic sites where local historians, authors, and civic leaders were interviewed. The history segments air on American History TV (AHTV) on C-SPAN3 and the literary events/non-fiction author segments air on BookTV on C-SPAN2. close