The Virginia Penitentiary in Richmond, January 1991.

Rare view of Richmond from the old State Pen, 1991.

This entry by Selden Richardson includes rare color images of the interior of the Virginia Penitentiary in Richmond taken by Selden in late January 1991. Selden had taken part in a small tour of the Penitentiary weeks after its inmates had been moved to other state facilities. Nearly one year later the penitentiary buildings were demolished. For a history of the penitentiary, view the guide to the Records of the Virginia Penitentiary, 1796-1991 (bulk 1906-1970) held at the Library of Virginia.  

Click on the images for a larger view.

 

An arial view of the Virginia State Penitentiary complex located along Spring Street at the intersection of South Second Street.  The site is now largely occupied by Afton Chemical, formerly known as Ethyl Labs. This view from the south shows the line of entire city blocks that were destroyed to create the Downtown Expressway which today runs parallel to West Canal and East Byrd streets.

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Within the grounds of the old Virginia State Penitentiary on Spring Street was a building with its own separate tall brick wall.  This was the maximum security building, home to the worst of the worst.  In the basement of that building was one corridor of cells like these, and this cold, gloomy steel world was about as low as you could go in society.  Today this building has been replaced by high-tech facilities like "Supermax" prisons, but for many years the most violent and vicious criminals in the entire State were held in this dungeon-like basement.

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A close-up view of the facility shows the prison yard and the walls of penitentiary shoehorned in beside the highway. That prison yard also served as a ball field for inmates - see the image below.

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This is a view from inside the now-demolished Virginia State Penitentiary, looking northeast toward downtown Richmond.  Although smaller than a regulation size baseball diamond, the field did allow recreation and bleachers for spectators inside the brick walls.  - Jan. 1991.

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That same location in 2013 - some 22 years later.
Click on images for larger view.
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A Virginia State Penitentiary officer slumps in one of the recently-vacated tier areas of the Pen in 1991.  Between the time the inmates were moved to other institutions and the complete demolition of the building complex, it was open for tours.  Stark, cold, and desolate, this rare window into the Pen afforded a rare opportunity to observe the architecture of confinement.  The demolition of the Pen brought to a close almost 200 years of there being a penitentiary on this site. - Jan. 1991.

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Although cold and quiet in this photograph, this area of the State Penitentiary must have been noisy and hellacious hot space in the summertime, filled with tier upon tier of inmates.  Note the lack of electronic monitoring in the tier area and the crude security measure of stringing concertina wire to prevent access to the ceiling spaces. - Jan. 1991.

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This large space on the eastern side of the Virginia State Penitentiary was the mess hall, which served many meals to the inmates over the years.  Here is the winter of 1991 the space was cold, empty and desolate where it had once rung with the shouts and cries of hundreds of men, some facing a lifetime of meals in this steel-bared cafeteria.- Jan. 1991.

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This prison cell is in the basement of the maximum security building. This dungeon-like area was the worst part of the penitentiary and home for inmates whom were at the rock bottom of society in Virginia. - Jan. 1991.

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Mixed messages left in a cell from inmates who were told to pack their belongings and prepare to move from Richmond's old State Penitentiary.  There are probably two hands at work here, the first leaving a homily about the choices one makes in life, the second inscription having none of it. - Jan. 1991.

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The inmate who occupied this cell at the Virginia State Penitentiary certainly had a keen sense of irony in the tiny sign over the toilet marked "EXIT."  Equally ironic was the presence of a poster from the 1988 slasher horror movie, "Bad Dreams."  Confined in this small metal space, bad dreams would seem the only kind available. - Jan. 1991

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A Department of Corrections guide stands outside the small bank of cells that constituted Death Row in the old Virginia State Penitentiary.  Only a few steps away, around the corner, was the room where the electric chair waited for the condemned.  These cells were used for decades to hold some of Virginia's most violent and desperate criminals before they were electrocuted. - Jan. 1991.

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This is the Virginia electric chair, pictured in January 1991 shortly before the demolition of the Virginia State Penitentiary and moving the chair to Greensville Correctional Center in Jarrett.  In the Commonwealth, the condemned has the choice of lethal injection or the electric chair.  Electrocution in this 101-year-old chair was chosen as recently as January 16, 2013 by an inmate who distrusted the lethal injection method. - Jan. 1991.

The three copper ventilators from the main Penitentiary building are perhaps the only architectural feature of the entire prison facility that still exist.  For decades these vents conveyed the stench of sweat, blood and fear up from the main tier building.  These conduits of misery are today a silent if inexplicable part of the exhibit at the Tredegar Ironworks historical site near the canal. - June, 2013.

- Selden Richardson.

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