Old Joliet Prison

I sort of want to give this place 2 stars for the extreme lack of things to do, but it’s the Joliet Prison for goodness sake, so I’ll round up to 3.
Seriously though. It’s basically a giant parking lot with some signs around it, and all you can do is look at the old prison building. The signs aren’t even that informative, most of them just say things like «welcome to Joliet!»
Worth a trip if you’re a Blues Brothers fan, otherwise… well… I wouldn’t go out of my way.

After surfing Unilocal for some things to do in the area we saw this interesting prison and decided to pay it a visit. When we showed up we were expecting the prison to be a bit more accessible, but it was nice to take a few minutes to read the information on the outer fence.
While we were there we had the chance to watch a «sale» in the parking lot which added a layer of fun to the mix but overall we expected more.
This prison would have received a 4 or 5 star rating if they had a tour or something along those lines.

A cool stop to see a prison of the past but also the very familiar sites of movies like The Blues Brothers and TV shows like Prison Break were shot here. Some detailed plaques give a great overview of the prison and its history. It was a fun stop on the book tour.

The Old Joliet Prison is an awesome historical building with Gothic architecture. It was built in 1858 and closed in 2002. It is located on Route 66. Just before you reach it, you will see a sign ‘Get Locked Up… At the Old Joliet Prison’. Then you enter the parking lot under a ‘Huge, Steel and Barbed Wire’ sign. You can’t go inside the prison, but you can read the 8 informational signs or walk all the way around the outside of the prison.
The Prison was featured in ‘The Blues Brothers’ movie and in the first season of TV’s ‘Prison Break’.
I now live in California, but visit family every year near Chicago. I love driving the Archer route through the forest preserve, and I always seem to end up at the Old Joliet Prison. It’s such a cool building to experience in person!