ABANDONED & DEMOLISHED: Detroit House of Corrections

The Detroit House of Corrections was constructed in 1919 on 1,000+ acres of Plymouth farmland. Inmates were originally incarcerated in tents, and a more solid prison began being built in 1922, finally in business by 1931. Thanks to the Depression, it took longer than expected.

It was a maximum security unit for men with a smaller prison for women across the road. During the 1930's - 1940's, the prison population contained many gangsters, robbers, thieves, swindlers, and bootleggers. One man that spent a brief period here in 1969 was writer, MC5 manager, and activist John Sinclair, given a ten-year sentence for possession of two marijuana joints. His sentence was eventually suspended in 1971.

In 1979, part of the compound was sold to the Michigan Department of Corrections and by 1985, the prison closed & re-opened as Western Wayne Correctional Facility.
In 2000, it was turned into a minimum security prison for women.

Thanks to the discovery of landfill waste (including dangerous levels of lead and methane) that ranged from the 1920's - 1950's, the facility shut down for good in 2004.

Demolition took place in 2017, but not before someone was able to get inside and get some great footage, of which you can see below.

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