The Pennsylvania Department of General Services<\/a>, which has been the site\u2019s manager since the Department of Corrections relinquished it to them in 2017, has the current Western Pen facility slated for demolition in 2026<\/a>. The original penitentiary was completed in 1827.<\/p>\n MacGregor worked at the prison in 2014. In his book\u2019s introduction and in conversation with NEXTpittsburgh, he says he wrote the book he wanted to read.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first got there, it was a fully active prison, but it\u2019s also, again, a very historic structure,\u201d he says. \u201cI started looking around, like, \u2018I want to read more about this place,\u2019 and there just wasn\u2019t anything out there.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2016, MacGregor published a brief history on his personal website<\/a> \u2014 a year before the prison would close for the final time.<\/p>\n \u201cBut then, after they shut the place down, I was like, \u2018Well, I need to write the whole history of this place.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Failing upward<\/p>\n Arguably the most critical piece to Western Pen\u2019s existence is the Pennsylvania System of Penology: A puritanical reformation method that locked inmates in solitary cells to contemplate their sins. The term \u201cPenitentiary\u201d is rooted in the word \u201cpenitence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou just sit in that room for how many years you got sentenced to, and you don\u2019t come out until you\u2019re better,\u201d MacGregor says.<\/p>\n Solitary confinement as a means of reformation \u2014 even though the method is now considered crude and malignant \u2014 arose after the Revolutionary War at the end of the 18th century. Previous to it, serving justice for a crime was more of a spectacle that involved fines or other types of punishment, MacGregor says.<\/p>\n Pennsylvania wasn\u2019t the first locale to have a penitentiary, but it was the first built for the Pennsylvania System, which was thought to be the ideal form of incarceration at the time.<\/p>\n Completed in 1827, the \u201cfirst\u201d Western Pen cost somewhere between $165,000 and $179,000 \u2014 about $4.2 to $4.5 million today. The octagonal building featured a central, cylindrical core of cells rather than the long, narrow halls of them that would become commonplace in the future.<\/p>\n In his book, MacGregor writes that it was \u201cthe best example that has ever existed of the solitary system carried to the most vicious extreme.\u201d<\/p>\n But the system that stimulated its construction proved its biggest shortcoming.<\/p>\n \u201cThat system wasn\u2019t sustainable,\u201d MacGregor says. \u201cNot only is it inhumane, it cost a lot of money. A single cell for every single prisoner and they don\u2019t do anything?\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, the building itself had a host of issues, from inadequate water flow for sanitation to poor visibility for guards and the complete lack of an infirmary. There wasn\u2019t much government funding to support improvements to the facility, and without a system in place to make money, Western Pen was struggling.<\/p>\n On the other side of the state, Philadelphia\u2019s Eastern State Penitentiary was quietly learning from Pittsburgh\u2019s mistakes. It opened only two years after Western Pen, in 1829, but shirked some of the Pennsylvania System\u2019s archaic directives to include something profitable: Prison labor.<\/p>\n By 1833, Western Pen entered another period of construction that would see it modified to reflect Eastern Pen. The central core of cells was demolished to make room for two wings of cells that fanned out like a \u201cV.\u201d It would host a total of 180 cells.<\/p>\n By 1837, they were complete, but this version of Western Pen would remain in perpetual construction for a host of improvements \u2014 including a third wing of cells \u2014 until 1872.<\/p>\n MacGregor quotes penology historian Harry Barnes\u2019 \u201cThe Evolution of Penology in Pennsylvania\u201d in his book: \u201cFew prison structures have had so short and unsuccessful an existence as Western Penitentiary in its original form.\u201d<\/p>\n Getting to work<\/p>\n MacGregor calls prison labor at these penitentiaries a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it was exploitative. Inmates were made to work for little to no pay with no recourse.<\/p>\n At the same time, MacGregor says, \u201cit gave these guys a break.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThink about being locked in a room 23 hours a day with no light. You\u2019re going to go crazy. They\u2019re begging for something to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Until the \u201csuccess\u201d of prison labor at Eastern State, the Pennsylvania Legislature and Philadelphia Society had refused to deviate from the isolation-based Pennsylvania System, even though both organizations knew \u201cearly on that solitary confinement led to illness,\u201d MacGregor writes in his book.<\/p>\n After a visit to Western Pen in 1842, Charles Dickens wrote that inmates would scream for work, lest they \u201cgo raving mad,\u201d merely in response to the trap in their cell door being opened.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has it; and by fits and starts applies himself to labour; but every now and then there comes upon him a burning sense of the years that must be wasted in that stone coffin, and an agony so piercing in the recollection of those who are hidden from his view and knowledge, that he starts from his seat, and striding up and down the narrow room with both hands clasped on his uplifted head, hears spirits tempting him to beat his brains out on the wall,\u201d Dickens writes.<\/p>\n MacGregor says that shoes were a popular product to be made in prisons. During labor\u2019s introductory period, each inmate worked in solitude, but by the 1860s, penitentiary officials realized they could increase production if inmates worked together and formed production lines of sorts.<\/p>\n Regarding coerced labor in the prison: It is worth remembering that during this time in American history, slavery was still occurring and wouldn\u2019t be abolished nationally until 1865<\/a>. <\/p>\n Until that point, there weren\u2019t many Black Pittsburghers. MacGregor\u2019s book notes that only about 1\/35th of the region\u2019s population was Black in 1835, but one-third of Western Pen\u2019s inmate population was Black.<\/p>\n This disproportionate rate of incarceration was also present at Eastern State Penitentiary. Since becoming a museum, Eastern Pen has continuously called attention to that disparity<\/a> and used it to start conversations about racial injustice in the American justice system.<\/p>\n Although Pennsylvania did not permit slavery, the unbalanced population figures and associated labor show a gruesome similarity. Comparisons between prison labor and slavery persist to this day<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n From the perspective of penitentiary leaders, though, it was a success: Labor generated profits while also teaching inmates a trade, which they assumed would increase their chances of rejoining the workforce upon release.<\/p>\n Still, they saw one major hurdle as hurting production speed: a lack of space.<\/p>\n \u2018The model prison for the nation and the world\u2018<\/p>\n By the mid-1870s, Western Pen had space for 500 inmates but was holding 830. The continuous additions to the building over the decades limited space for labor.<\/p>\n To resolve both issues, prison officials decided to construct the Riverside Intermediate Prison of Western Pennsylvania. The additional space would host nonviolent, first-time offenders under 30 years old, and would prioritize reforming these younger inmates to rejoin the general population with workforce skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the plan faced opposition from the leaders of Allegheny City \u2014 now known as Pittsburgh\u2019s North Side. According to MacGregor\u2019s book, the leaders wanted Western Pen to be eliminated and demolished, not expanded in any capacity. One primary reason cited for the push was escape attempts, since Allegheny City would essentially be a first stop for escaped inmates based on its location.<\/p>\n The issue of prison overcrowding won out against the complaints, though, and construction began in 1879. It continued sporadically for the next 17 years.<\/p>\n Allegheny City leaders\u2019 wish to eliminate Western Pen technically came true as well, but not in the way they wanted.<\/p>\n Come 1884, Western Pen officials had decided Riverside was the superior facility and would solely operate out of it. The final inmates of the original Western Pen were transferred to Riverside in May 1884. Less than a year later, during the summer of 1885, the old penitentiary was razed.<\/p>\n Around the same time, Pittsburgh was seeing an influx of Black residents from southern states who were moving north to escape Jim Crow laws<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAlthough the number of Black Pittsburghers remained low through much of the 19th century, by the 1890s those numbers grew exponentially,\u201d MacGregor\u2019s book reads.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/14496398262_d33ea42cf3_b.jpg\")
A colorized version of the 1839 sketch titled \u201cPenitentiary near Pittsburgh,\u201d by illustrator Karl Bodmer. The image depicts the original Western State Penitentiary, which was completed in 1827. Image courtesy of DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University via flickr.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/fig.10.jpg\")
A floor plan for Western State Penitentiary\u2019s original construction. Image originally published in William Crawford\u2019s \u201cReport on the Penitentiaries of the United States,\u201d courtesy of Doug MacGregor.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/fig.17.jpg\")
Western Pen\u2019s updated floor plan after Eastern State Penitentiary proved the design\u2019s success. Image originally published in William Crawford\u2019s \u201cReport on the Penitentiaries of the United States,\u201d courtesy of Doug MacGregor.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/fig.1-scaled.jpg\")
A photo of he Riverside Intermediate Prison of Western Pennsylvania from 1897. Image originally published in \u201cCity of Allegheny, PA: History and Institutions,\u201d courtesy of Doug MacGregor.<\/p>\n