“That movie really boosted our popularity,’’ says John Moore, a former Folsom guard who helps run the quirky but informative museum by the front gate called the Retired Correctional Peace Officers Museum. It’s filled with Cash memorabilia (CDs, DVDs, T-shirts, and photos), as well as history books on the prison (which opened in 1880 and houses 3,500 inmates), plus artifacts from handcuffs to improvised weapons seized inside by guards. There are tourist knickknacks such as shot glasses, coffee cups, and shirts, including one touting the “Folsom Prison bed and breakfast.’’ There’s also inmate art, notably an 8-foot-high model of a Ferris wheel made from a quarter-million toothpicks.
Visiting Folsom may seem perverse, but I’ve been fascinated by the Cash history and by the MSNBC prison series, “Lockup.’’ And I’m not alone. The day I visited the museum, a London couple on their honeymoon were there, and a mother who brought her young daughter, a big fan of Cash’s music. The museum includes a small cell with a mannequin inmate swiveling its head scarily and saying he once had only a candle for light and ate bean soup and boiled pork every day. The mother was horrified, but the little girl dug it. All proceeds from the museum go to the American Cancer Society and the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
For the best overview, take the tour. Contact the prison’s public affairs office to arrange it - preferably weeks in advance. My group comprised seven guests chaperoned by Officer Ernie Valencia, who basically took us everywhere, much to my surprise. After passing through a metal detector by the imposing front tower, we walked inside the massive compound surrounded by granite walls that had been hand-carved by prisoners from a quarry on the 1,000-acre grounds. The walls, completed in the 1920s, are 25 feet high, 8 feet wide, and 15 feet deep to thwart any attempt to dig out.
