The Ghosts of Squirrel Cage Jail, Part One | Grave Talks CLASSIC

The Grave Talks | Haunted, Paranormal & Supernatural

Ghost Stores, Haunted, Paranormal & Supernatural Stories

Science, Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture, Personal Journals, Spirituality, Natural Sciences

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is a Grave Talks CLASSIC EPISODE!

In the late 1800s, the Squirrel Cage Jail in Council Bluffs, Iowa, was touted as a revolutionary innovation in incarceration. A rotating "human hamster wheel" of cells promised security with minimal manpower. In reality? It turned into a logistical nightmare—and, some say, a spiritual one. Operating from 1885 to 1969, this bizarre vertical jail witnessed everything from despair to death… and apparently, some souls never checked out. Paranormal activity has been reported as far back as the 1950s, with even jailors refusing to sleep in their quarters. In this classic episode of The Grave Talks, we explore the unsettling legacy of this architectural oddity with Kat Slaughter, Director of the Squirrel Cage Jail and RailsWest Railroad Museum. Are the spirits of inmates still turning in their cells? Or has something else taken up residence in this rotating relic?

For more information on the museums as well as tours and paranormal investigations, visit their website thehistoricalsociety.org

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Today on The Grave Talks, a conversation about the Squirrel Caged Jail Museum with Cat Slaughter.
0:12.3	In the 1880s, the Squirrel Cage Jail in Council Bluffs, Iowa, was considered a revolutionary concept in housing inmates.
0:25.9	They claimed the new concept allowed for maximum security with minimum jailer attention.
0:32.5	It was a 19th century marvel, constructed so that only one jailer was needed to keep an eye on an entire jail full of prisoners.
0:42.7	The cells were all positioned on a central carousel that when a hand crank was turned, it would rotate the cells so that only one could be entered at a time.
0:52.9	However, it didn't take long to realize this concept didn't work as they thought it would.
0:58.9	While the jailer could attend to that one cell, the others were simply trapped.
1:05.8	Of the 18 prisons built, most were closed within a couple of years after opening. However, the squirrel
1:12.8	cage jail remained in operation until 1969. But it seems some of those who were once there are
1:21.2	still there. Reports of hauntings date back to the 1950s when a jailer refused to sleep in his quarters because he
1:29.5	believed it to be haunted. Today on the grave talks, we talk about the hauntings of the squirrel
1:35.9	cage jail with Kat Slaughter, director of the Squirrel Cage Jail Museum and Rails West Railroad
1:43.6	Museum. I'm really engaged jail museum and Rails West Railroad Museum.
1:49.7	I'm really interested in both of these locations.
1:53.5	The one that drew me to you, though, was the squirrel cage jail museum.
1:58.9	And I saw that first, and I was like, what the heck is this? Because it says it's a jail.
2:00.9	But then when you look at photos of it, I would seriously say an old courthouse is what it looks like.
2:07.8	It does not look like a jail.
2:09.7	Yeah.
2:10.2	It's a really weird one.
2:12.6	So I want to start a little with you.
2:15.7	So you're the director there. When you started working there,
	...

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