The Knoxville News Sentinel has a short article noting the closing of Brushy Mountain Prison and raising the possibility that it be opened for visitors. Prison tourism has certainly paid off for some places. Alcatraz Island is on the short list of “must-sees” in San Francisco and Boston is about to open a hotel–jocularly named the Liberty Hotel–in the former Charles Street Jail. Then there’s this former prison in Oxford, England, where people can spend the night.
As interesting as Brushy Mountain might be to visitors, it has two strikes against it.
First, Petros, Tennessee, where Brushy Mountain prison sits, has its charms, but it is no San Franciso or Oxford. Petros is about as much in the middle of nowhere as you can get in Tennessee. While this made a dandy location for a prison, it’s not a very handy one for visitors, unlike, say, the old prison in Laramie, Wyoming, which is ten minutes off I-80. Brushy Mountain is on the way to Historic Rugby on the Cumberland Plateau and close by the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, but will a prison attract fanciers of Victorian architecture and wilderness folk?
That brings us to Brushy Mountain’s second affliction: its only famous inmate was one of the most despised felons of the 20th Century. James Earl Ray was the man who killed the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. He escaped from Brushy Mountain in 1977–I helped cover his capture for The New York Times–but most of Ray’s admirers are either in prison or ought to be.
With no particularly famous inmates of the Bonnie and Clyde or Machine Gun Kelly type, and a not-to-die-for location, the cards do not look good for making Brushy Mountain a stop on the tourism trail. It might be a fantastic place for paintball, but that’s about all.
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May 11, 2008 at 11:42 pm |
it dont matter who wants to come tour brushy we dont care about that. brushy has gave jobs to people all over the area for years, its family thing around here. brushy means alot to people around here. good guards have died here. kids grew up on the fields around it. brushy means alot to us so u can stay out we dont care if anyone tours it we will keep for ourselves.
November 4, 2009 at 7:12 am |
It is the ignorate bliefs of people like you that have held Tennessee back for so long. Come out of the BACKWOODS. Understand that no one is trying to knock your LITTLE TOWN, but the truth is the truth. Without something replacing the prison, the economy that you are so proud of, will be “DIRT POOR” more so then what it is now. SO YOU SHOULD CARE.. GROW UP…HOW OLD ARE YOU. Alot of people there have died, NOT ONLY THE GUARDS. IT WAS THE BELLY OF THE BEAST! And they should have closed it down hundreds of years ago. The guards saw, looked over, and sent people after people all the time. How many times did the Guards close their eyes, to rapes, torture, killings. And these are the things that the guards also did themselves. On top of all of that it was a racial hell hole. Are you one of the Guards that did the constant beatings, and rapes, and killings they were blamed on other inmates? If you know so much about “Brushy”, then you are one or the other. Which one are you, the Guards that were killing, raping, and beating people ( sometimes to death) or a Inmate?
Know what you are talking about. There was nothing Great about “Brushy”!
Do you have a secret that you don’t want to come out?
YOUR COMMENT SHOWS THAT YOU ARE A RACIST, IGNORATE REDNECK. STAY IN PETROS, TENNESSEE!!!!!!!!!!
June 8, 2009 at 5:33 am |
I think it would be a good idea to turn the prison into tours. This would create money to the town and create jobs.