The account
The job was ordinary: remove an old lock from an abandoned prison cell. The experience described afterward was not. In Eastern State’s audio tour, ghost-story author Charles Adams recounts meeting a locksmith who said he had encountered an overwhelming force while working on the door. Adams remembered the man as frightened and unable to explain what had happened. The account is small enough to picture without adding anything: a worker, a mechanism intended to confine people, and a sudden feeling that the empty cell is no longer empty.
Following the trail
A recorded story, with its history attached
The official tour identifies Adams and lets listeners hear his interpretation in his own words. He is reporting another person’s experience, rather than presenting a recording or measurement from the event. The tour also distinguishes the prison’s haunting atmosphere from claims about spirits, grounding the setting in more than a century of documented human suffering.
Why it stays with us
The lock gives the story its force. Opening an abandoned cell should be a practical act of restoration. In this account, it briefly feels like releasing something. That is a powerful image without needing to turn every imprisoned person into a ghost.
Follow the sources 1
- Audio tour transcript, chapter 26 ↗Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site