Historic Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary — Attraction in Tennessee

I'll start out by saying that this was a historically interesting location to visit. There are some intriguing signs that tell of this penitentiary's storied history.

So why 2 stars? This place is a tourist trap. The only thing scary about the place is the sheer number of kids running rampart around the facility pretending to be inmates turned loose to raise Cain. These same people sported Brushy Mountain State Pen sweatshirts, sweatpants, and hats. Who in their right mind would want clothing to member their visit to a penitentiary where thousands of people who inflicted incalculable harm and atrocities spent their sentences?

The gift shop, distillery, restaurant, event center, blah blah blah completely obscure the experience.

Having to pay over $20 for a self-guided tour was beyond ridiculous. There are other state penitentiary's throughout the country that offer amazing guided tours for less. I'd recommend spending your money and time there instead. The yellow arrows on the ground "guiding you" might as well all be random. There's no order or sense to touring the place. You get to the entrance and are left in the courtyard to go wherever you want. If you're not keen on where you've been and haven't you may do as I almost did and miss some parts entirely.

If you're going to rip people off to do only god knows that with all the money banked from this (I'm sure it's not going to the professional armchair staff sitting as mere obstacles to avoid in your travels), at least have a well-detailed pamphlet that does more than label buildings (most of which you can't enter).

Not all is lost, however. Most of the buildings have light switches you can turn off to annoy/scare the heck out of other folks who took out a second mortgage so their family could wander this gem of a place. The Authorized Access signs can be easily disabled to allow you free roam wherever you want.

The best use of your time here is to attend the motorcycle meet/show on the weekends, also known as 65% of the parking lot. If you're adventurous you can even rent some off-road vehicles to tackle the gravel car lot or head into town to feast on some 30-hour slow-rolled corndogs at the local variety store; also one of the venues for the motorcycle event.

Perhaps the true clientele for future marketing campaigns would be ex-cons of residence here; who can relive the good old days and this time enjoy some food, whiskey, decently-survived showers in the cell block, and perhaps spend some time outside rethinking that...

We visited the penitentiary on a Tuesday, and didn't encounter any crowds.. or other people at all for that matter.. so this could have been an eerie and realistic tour. However, we were very very disappointed in how the state has left this facility go into such a sad state of disrepair. I get that the facility has been closed since 2009, but it seems that there has been absolutely no maintenance done in any of the buildings, beyond the restaurant and Distillery portion, so that leaves us with a tour of the penitentiary which seems like it is simply just an abandoned building. We would have liked to have seen it in the shape that it was when it was being used to house prisoners. The countless layers of, probably, lead paint were peeling off of all walls, bars, floors, everything, and what wasn't peeling was actively rusting, leaving very little undisturbed surfaces. Tile was falling off the walls in the showers, plumbing was leaking from the cell block ceilings, and concrete floors were cracked and heaving. I would guess it's going to be only a matter of a year or so before this facility needs to be closed to the public due to the unsafe conditions. I realize they wish for your experience there to be eerie, and the overnight ghost tours to be tantalizing and realistic, but this can be done while still maintaining and upkeeping the facility. In our small group, we took the self-guided tour, and were very disappointed with the lack of guidance beyond the convoluted yellow arrows that took you in random directions with no rhyme or reason. I am quite sure we missed a lot on the tour. I do not recall seeing either the laundry room or the cafeteria, or if I did, all equipment was already removed making it just four peeling walls. Not all buildings were open to tour. Having two retired prison guards from other state facilities in our group, they would have liked to have seen the cell door breakers and perhaps a restored central control room, but it seems that this Penitentiary has been stripped clean. For $19 to $22 per head, I would have expected something really great from this historic landmark. We did not eat at the restaurant nor sample the Moonshine, as we came to see the prison. Now excuse me while I go get a...

I Visited the Historic Brushy Mountain Prison on a cloudy Saturday Afternoon. You purchase your self-guided tour tickets at the gift shop which also house the Wardens Table Restaurant and the tasting area of the Bushy Mountain Distillery. Before beginning our tour of the prison, I had lunch at the Wardens Table. I had the BBQ plate which was quite good, and the serving was plentiful. Today the Brushy Mountain Prison complex is an event venue that hosts a variety of concerts and activities. Be sure to purchase your tour ticket at the gift shop before heading up to the prison. They do NOT sell tickets at the prison. There is limited parking available up at the prison and a number of visitors were walking up the hill from the Gift Shop. Visitors enter the prison through the Administration Entrance where your ticket is collected, and you begin your self0guided tour. I started in the small Museum which features a number of artifacts from guards, staff members and prisoners. Brushy Mountain’s most famous inmate was James Earl Ray who was convicted of killing Martin Luther King. One of the artifacts in the museum is the makeshift ladder Ray used to escape from the prison in 1977. He was captured 3-days later, about 8-miles from the Prison. Stationed at several location throughout the prison are staff members who are available to point out interesting facts and offer insight into what life was like behind the wall of this historic prison. Many of these staff members are former inmates who served their time here at Brushy Mountain. One of the thing that one of the former inmates pointed out was Cell #28 which at one time housed James Earl Ray. In what was the Prison Cafeteria be sure to take note of the paintings on the wall. Many of these wildlife and landscape scenes were painted by the inmates. You can tour the prison at your own pace, and I ended up spending a little over two hours inside the prison and counting the time I took for lunch and visiting the gift shop, my total time on the campus was almost 4-hours. Brushy Mountain Prison is in a rural and remote area of Tennessee. It does take some time and effort to get here but I enjoyed my visit and I’m glad that I...