Whenever we visit my parents on the family farm north of Anamosa, we have a ritual. When we come back through town, we always make a point to drive by the Anamosa Penitentiary. Not because I have some fascination with prison life, but I have an admiration for the building itself. Here is this big stone castle in the middle of small town Iowa. It casts an imposing shadow over the city and has been the source of many stories and rumors over the years.

The first convicts were transferred to Anamosa in 1873. The building and walls as they stand today weren't completed until the 1880's. Yes, there have been prison escapes. And yes, there have been some famous prisoners too, most notably, John Wayne Gacy. But that's not what draws me to the prison. It's the building.

I've often said that I'd love to spend several days and nights shooting photographs of the building. I love driving down a residential street and seeing the stone bricks of the prison at the end of the view. The kids are fascinated by it too. Although they ask questions about who's in there, and what did they do. The building used to house the worst of the worst criminals. Some may remain, but now it mostly holds moderate to medium security prisoners. Some say that they building was molded after a church so that the inmates might choose a more righteous path once entering the building. I sometimes wonder if it worked.

A prison can have all kinds of effects on a town. I'm sure the one in Anamosa has. How has it affected the socio-economic environment? The make-up of the residents of the city? The job market? I tend not to dwell too much on these thoughts when I drive by. I just look at the building. A dinosaur of architecture standing tall for decades. I see the stone bricks and the rusted iron bars and realize this is no movie. This prison story is real.

 

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