A three-story rotary jail built in 1885 in Council Bluffs: a cage of pie-shaped cells that revolved, so one jailer could control every prisoner without coming into contact with any of them. Of the 18 revolving jails ever built, three survive, and this is the only one with three floors. It held prisoners until 1969, and many of their names and dates are still scratched into the cell walls. In the 1950s the jailer Bill Foster refused the fourth-floor apartment because he heard people walking on a floor with nobody on it. Since then people have reported a former jailer, Otto Gufath, standing on the fourth floor, doors that open by themselves, a little girl in gray inside a locked cell, and two ghost cats. Four deaths are known here. The Historical and Preservation Society of Pottawattamie County runs it as a museum and books overnight investigations, with Ouija boards and séances banned. PUBLIC, admission charged.
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
