Ever wanted a good scare once in awhile? Well, if you do, then you should visit Moundsville Penitentiary located in West Virginia, or should you?
Let’s start with the history, originally opening in 1877 as a small quickly made prison. It closed in 1995 as there was to many escapees and riots. At first glance you may feel that this sounds like an awesome haunted place to visit and it makes sense paying 200 dollars to explore, but if you dig a bit deeper, you notice something else.
Go to the prison’s main page for example; you can see they feature a lot of events that they do, for ex: Zombie Walk, Sip and Seek, Family night, and to top it all off, princess tea. There are many other events they do, but that’s not the point: the point is for an “extremely” haunted place, family game night might not be smart. Bringing you to another question, What if the prison is not extremely haunted, rather it’s just an extremely easy way to make easy money?
Let’s use their Superhero party as an example. On their page it says, “Come join your favorite Superheroes for a day of fun, games, snacks, and more- you can even DRESS LIKE A SUPERHERO!! Batman, Spider-Man, Captain America, Superman, and The Incredible Hulk will ALL be here. You can’t miss this event!!!” Sounds fun! Though the fact is, its $20/child charge kind of brings the fun aspect down - at least for the parents. Also the fact they invite 7-12-year-olds to one of the “most haunted places” makes you question, is it even haunted? or is that just a way to make more people wanna come? Let’s go to paranormal investigators who have gone and hear what they think.
If you are wondering what a paranormal investigator is, they are someone that looks for ghosts and tries to communicate with them. In most of the videos filmed, it’s only people saying they feel a presence. Some people say they felt a tug or saw something, but all of those things might have been in their heads or they could’ve said it to get views on YouTube.
Moundsville Penitentiary sounds like a fun place to go to for an exciting Halloween trip. If you’re looking for full-on ghost talk, you may want to go somewhere else. This place could be a nice start to your paranormal career, but maybe not a place to go to make ghost friends.
What do you think? Would you go here? Is this place really haunted?