Demolition underway at old Missouri prison

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Gov. Matt Blunt watched with an impressed smile Wednesday as a gigantic mechanical claw ripped into the former administration building at the old Missouri State Penitentiary, clearing the way for a new federal courthouse.

Until it closed three years ago, the penitentiary a few blocks east of the Capitol was the oldest continuously operated prison west of the Mississippi River. It opened in 1836.

Some of the most historic buildings are being preserved, but the rest will come down as part of a redevelopment plan for the 142-acre site. A new state health laboratory and headquarters for the Department of Natural Resources already are open on part of the land.

Construction of a $71 million federal courthouse is tentatively scheduled to begin in 2008 and be completed by 2011.

But first, the state is spending about $1 million to demolish seven 1930s era buildings -- the administration office, a garage, prison hospital, two housing units and a kitchen and dining hall -- that sit on the future courthouse site.

Ahrens Contracting Inc., based in the St. Louis area, began tearing down the buildings in early August and is scheduled to be finished by Oct. 24, said Charlie Brzuchalski, a senior project manager with the Office of Administration's Division of Facilities Management, Design and Construction.

Blunt used the prison demolition as a symbol of his desire to "tear down barriers to economic growth an opportunity."

The penitentiary closed in September 2004 when the Department of Corrections moved the inmates to the new Jefferson City Correctional Center built on the eastern outskirts of the city.

The prison has long generated curiosity.

It once housed Sonny Liston, who turned his boxing skills learned in prison into a career as a heavyweight champion. Other occupants included Pretty Boy Floyd and James Earl Ray, who killed Martin Luther King Jr. after escaping from the penitentiary. In 1954, it was the site of a fiery riot that killed four inmates, injured 50 others and injured four prison workers.

The old prison had lots of nooks and crannies not present in modern day lockups. Shortly before it closed, two convicted murderers -- suspected in the death of a third convicted murderer -- took advantage of that by hiding under an ice house stairway and eluding searchers for almost four days.

A month after it closed, about 20,000 tourists strolled through the prison when the state opened it up for a brief two-day public tour.

Blunt, who grew up in Jefferson City while his father served as secretary of state, said he also was curious about the old prison.

"As a young boy, I always wondered why we had a prison right in the middle of town," Blunt said during a news conference at its front gate. "It never made a lot of sense to me, so it seems logical that we would move it and allow for a more robust use of this site."

Office of Administration Commissioner Michael Keathley said it's possible that more state offices could be located on the site, in addition to private projects.

Keathley said state officials are discussing whether to move the Department of Corrections headquarters from a leased office space on the west side of the city into the remaining historic buildings on the penitentiary grounds.