“Well thank you, pal. The day I get outta prison, my own brother picks me up in a police car.”

So begins Blues Brothers. And so begins the tale of the Joliet Prison. Located about 40 miles west of downtown Chicago, the Joliet Prison is as famous for its star turn in Blues Brothers and Prison Break as it is for the people who were locked up there and the horrible conditions. It was built in 1858, had no running water until 1910 and was generally a horrible, tortuous place to be. It closed in 2002 and continues to sit vacant and decaying.