Inside Georgia’s Abandoned Rivers State Prison | Barbed Wire, Cells & Forgotten History

Video Description

Join us as we explore the haunted halls of Rivers State Prison — a place once brimming with life, now abandoned and cloaked in history. In this video, we take a tour through time to uncover the story behind one of Georgia’s forgotten correctional facilities.

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👉 About Rivers State Prison
• Rivers State Prison was originally part of the Central State Hospital complex in Milledgeville, Georgia. 
• The site includes buildings constructed in the late 1930s and early 1940s, including a tuberculosis hospital group, built under New Deal programs by the WPA and PWA during Governor E. D. Rivers’ administration. 
• These buildings were long used for mental health care and hospital purposes before being converted into a prison. 

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📆 From Hospital to Prison
• In 1981, the state converted the Rivers Buildings into a prison facility. The aging hospital structures were repurposed to alleviate overcrowding in county jails. 
• At its peak, Rivers housed more than 1,100 minimum- and medium-security inmates. 

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🔒 Closure and Aftermath
• The prison officially closed in October 2008. 
• Before closing, inmates were relocated to other state prisons. Staff were offered transfers elsewhere within a roughly 45-minute radius. 
• Since its closure, the site has stood largely unused. There have been occasional film shoots, but the buildings continue to decay, overtaken by nature and vandalism. 

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🔍 Why It Matters
• Rivers State Prison is part of a larger story about how institutional care and incarceration intersect in Georgia’s history.
• It stands as a relic of architectural styles, medical treatment practices, and correctional strategies from mid-20th century America.
• It also raises questions about preservation, memory, and the value of places that society has forgotten.