Nebraska State Penitentiary — Old Cell House

The 1876 Nebraska State Penitentiary has served continuously and accumulated well over a century of trauma within its walls, including 37 executions. The Old Cell House — the original limestone structure — is where death row inmates were held and where the gallows stood. A prisoner executed for murder in 1911 is the most frequently reported apparition — a thin man in prison stripes seen walking the tier corridor. Staff on night shift report cell doors that lock themselves, the smell of cigarette smoke in no-smoking areas, and a recurring sound of someone dragging their feet across the stone floor.