I Spent 24 Hours Sealed Inside an Abandoned State Prison

Most people spend their lives trying to leave prison behind. We paid to be locked inside one.

For 24 full hours, @T‪@TpUrbex‬nd I were legally sealed inside an abandoned state prison - cut off from the outside world and moving through silent cell blocks, empty yards, and long institutional corridors designed for control and confinement. There was no quick exit, no staff on site, and no way out until morning. Once the doors closed, we were in it for the entire day and night.

This wasn’t about jump scares or exaggeration. It was about experiencing what it feels like to exist inside a place built to isolate people, hour after hour, with nothing but time, darkness, and the weight of the structure itself. As daylight faded and the prison settled into silence, the scale of the space - and the reality of being locked inside it - became impossible to ignore.

We spent 24 hours locked inside the abandoned state prison to document the space as it exists now - quiet, decaying, and unchanged by time.

Let’s Explore.

History: The Cresson complex first opened in 1913 as a tuberculosis sanatorium, a facility designed to isolate patients during a time when treatment options were limited. Decades later, the property was converted into SCI Cresson, a maximum-security state prison in Pennsylvania that operated for decades and housed thousands of inmates. The architecture reflects this evolution - medical wards transformed into housing units, open spaces reinforced for security, and layers of control added onto the original structures. SCI Cresson officially closed in 2013, leaving the prison abandoned and largely untouched. Today, the empty cell blocks, administrative offices, and medical bays remain as a rare example of an institutional facility frozen in transition, slowly deteriorating while still clearly reflecting its original purpose.

Check out last week's video:
   • Exploring an Abandoned Hospital That Feels...  

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https://www.imaginariumsanitarium.com

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