It no longer surprises me that I find myself in a field, all alone, staring into the dark entrance of a graffiti-covered underground structure.
“Welcome to Rutland Prison camp,” I think to myself.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts purchased land in Rutland, Mass., in 1903 to build the Rutland Prison Camp, a place where petty criminals and drunkards would serve their punishment while being productive. According to the Town of Rutland’s website, inmates would work the surrounding fields and tend to livestock, growing crops and harvesting milk and eggs that would be sold to Worcester.
Life at the prison camp was short-lived, however. A tuberculosis hospital would be built close by for the prisoners. Then, the prison camp closed in 1934, leaving the land to be used for water supply feeding the Quabbin Reservoir.
More than 120 years later, the Rutland Prison Camp ruins include a small standalone cell block with six cells, five of which have ceilings that have completely collapsed. A root cellar remains buried under an adjacent field and is mostly intact. Graffiti covers almost every available porous surface on both structures.
The Rutland Prison Camp ruins are located in the Rutland State Park in Rutland, Mass. There is a parking area close by, and the entrance is free.
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