Jefferson City

The penitentiary the plaque places here held Missouri's prisoners for 168 years. It opened in 1836 to John Haviland's design and was replaced by the Jefferson City Correctional Center in 2004. Sonny Liston learned to box inside before his 1953 parole; Emma Goldman was held for conspiring against draft registration and Kate Richards O'Hare for an antiwar speech; James Earl Ray escaped on April 23, 1967, hidden in a bread box. A riot in September 1954 left four inmates dead and about $5 million in damage. Guided tours now go through the old walls.

What the plaque says

Jefferson City The capital of Missouri, officially named the City of Jefferson in honor of the third U.S. President, is built on a site chosen by the First General Assembly, 1821, for a seat of government. St. Charles, until 1826, was the temporary capital while the new town was established here. The first statehouse here burned, 1837, the second, 1911. Today's magnificent capitol completed 1917, is built of native Carthage marble. The capitol is famous for its paintings, sculpture, and murals which highlight the historic role of Missouri as Frontier State; Gateway to the West; Mother of the West; and agricultural and industrial Center State. Other features are the Resources Museum; Soldiers and Sailors' Hall; murals by Benton and Brangwyn; and legislative chambers. In 1829 the city became the seat of Cole Co., organized 1820, named for Stephen Cole, pioneer. In 1833 the State Penitentiary was located here; the Missouri Pacific Railroad reached this point, 1855; and the Missouri River was bridged, 1896. Lincoln University, now State supported, was chartered as an institute for Negroes, 1866. (See other side) Jefferson City (Continued from other side) The State capital, in the Ozark foothills, near the State's center, was settled mainly by Southerners and later Germans on land ceded the U.S. by the Osage Indians, 1808. During the Civil War, delegates elected to a State Convention, Feb. 1861, to decide Missouri's status in the Union, deposed the pro-Southern State officers who had left at the approach of Union troops, June 1861. A Provisional Government, set up by the Convention, kept Missouri in the Union. The State Seal, shown atop the marker, was adopted, 1822. Among symbols used are the crescent (mark of the second son) for Missouri, the second state formed from the Louisiana Purchase; a bear for courage and resources; the U.S. Coat of Arms for union; a helmet for strength; and a large star for Missouri, 24th state. The motto is "Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law." Among sites of interest are the National Cemetery; Executive Mansion; Cole Co. Hist. Soc. Museum; Supreme Court, State Highway, and other State buildings; and statuary on capitol grounds and the river front view.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Missouri State Capitol — 0.6 mi
  The 1917 capitol on the Jefferson City bluff, built after lightning burned its predecessor, with the State Museum downstairs and Thomas Hart Benton's mural of Missouri in the House Lounge.
• Lincoln University and the Soldiers' Memorial — 1.6 mi
  The school that Black soldiers of the 62nd and 65th U.S. Colored Infantry paid for out of army wages in 1866, now a land-grant university on its Jefferson City hill.
• Rock Bridge Memorial State Park — 21 mi
  Karst on the edge of Columbia: a boardwalk through a natural rock tunnel to the Devil's Icebox sinkholes, over a cave that is the only known home of the pink planarian.
• America's National Churchill Museum — 22 mi
  The Westminster College campus where Churchill gave the Iron Curtain speech in 1946, with a bombed Wren church from London rebuilt stone by stone above his museum.

More markers nearby

• Osage County — 13 mi
• Fulton — 22 mi
• Columbia — 25 mi
• Miller County — 28 mi