Hi, you have reached the Alice Obscura podcast line.

Leave me a message about a strange, unusual or surprising place that happens to be near

where you grew up or where you have known.

Hi there, my name is Kenneth Rusk.

I grew up in West Central Indiana near a small city called Crawfordville.

Crawfordville has a number of things that it's famous for, but I think that one of the

more unique things in Crawfordville is that it is the location of the only remaining

operating rotary jail.

Now these jails were found all across the Midwest, and the idea was that the jail cells were

situated sort of like a cylinder which could be spun within the interior of the jail.

That way guards would only have to interact with one cell at a time.

To this day, most of them had torn down, only four of them remain standing, and the one

in Crawfordville is the only one that still spins.

To this day, you can go there and the apparatus that actually spins the cells, the crank,

that all still works.

I think it's a unique thing for a small city like Crawfordville to have, something that

really is truly one of a kind.

Thank you for the call, Kenneth.

I do have to say that the idea of a rotating jail feels distinctly wrong.

Anyway, to get a better sense of how this jail actually worked and know a little bit more

about its history, we called the rotary jail in Crawfordville, Indiana and spoke with

Brittany Turpin.

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