Riverview Cemetery is located at 2600 West Main Street in Jefferson City, Missouri. I have lived in Missouri my entire life and had never been to the state capital. My best friend had a childcare conference there in March 2002. I wasn’t working at the time so we packed up our scrapbook supplies and headed off to Jefferson City about two and a half hours to the east. We didn’t have a lot of free time while we were there because of the conference, but we made the best of the time we had. Since driving through cemeteries is one of our favorite pasttimes at home, we wanted to check out some cemeteries in our state’s capital. So we are driving along and see a cemetery with an old antique horse-drawn hearse in the front. Riverview Cemetery was not the most lavish cemetery we had ever been too, but it turned out to be the location of the best ghost picture we have ever gotten. We were wandering around taking pictures. I wasn’t feeling anything paranormal, but I usually don’t. My best friend was about to crawl out of her skin. She can be very sensitive about things sometimes, but I usually tell her to suck it up and move on. I wanted a picture of her in front of the biggest mausoleum in the cemetery. She wasn’t happy about it as you will see in the picture, but she stood there. Imagine my surprise when we got the pictures developed (Yes, I said developed!) 
and we found the most incredible thing. There was somebody else posing in the picture with her. I owed her an amends for not believing her. The picture clearly showed a woman standing off to the right of the mausoleum. It also showed streaks of light shooting into frame from the right. For you skeptics, yes it was the middle of the day and yes, the sun was shining. Other pictures in the cemetery came out clear, no streaks from the sun and the woman only showed up in this one. Honestly, I don’t care if you believe it or not, it happened. So be sure to double click on the pics so you can see it really close. You can see a gray image of a woman wearing a dress. The first picture is the full shot and the second picture has the lady by herself.
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Ghost Pic from Jefferson City
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Cropped Ghost Pic
Miller Mausoleum
One day my best friend and I went out for a drive. We were just outside the tiny town of Holden, Missouri when we came upon the Miller Mausoleum. It didn’t seem possible that this mausoleum was just sitting out in the country like that. So what do you do when you’re driving down a country road and stumble upon a really cool mausoleum? Well you pull over and go investigate! I had never seen anything like this before and I have been to a lot of cemeteries. So after doing a little research, this is the information I came up with:
The mausoleum was built by Joseph M. Miller, a prominent citizen of Madison Township in Johnson County, Missouri. He was a teacher, a farmer, and a man who liked to read the Bible. He decided he didn’t want to be buried because of his concern about the water that settles into graves. He appreciated the ideas of people in the Bible burying their dead in caves where they would be dry. He began working on the mausoleum in 1916 and it became known as “Joseph’s Tomb”. It’s not clear exactly when the main structure was finished but in 1934 the doors and windows were still not in. The walls of the first floor are three feet thick and those of the second floor are two feet thick. Above the second floor is a turret with a dome on top that is flattened into an observation platform. One of the main entrances leads down into the family crypt. The second floor of the tomb was devoted to religious pictures and space for a museum. There also used to be a park surrounding the building. After the older family was gone, the younger generation didn’t take interest in the mauseleum and it began to fall into a state of disrepair. Joseph Miller’s father, brothers, sisters and six children of his and his wife, Laura, who died in infancy, are interred there.
Click on the link below to see a Google map of the area. The mausoleum is the gray building on the left side of the highway.
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Miller Mausoleum
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Miller Mausoleum
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Miller Mausoleum
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Miller Mausoleum
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Miller Mausoleum
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Miller Mausoleum
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Miller Mausoleum
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Miller Mausoleum
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Inside the Miller Mausoleum
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On the “Porch” of the Miller Mausoleum
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Miller Mausoleum
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Miller Mausoleum
- Kansas City Workhouse
The Kansas City Workhouse, also known as the “Vine Street Workhouse”, is located at 21st and Vine in Kansas City, Missouri. It was also called “Brant’s Castle”, after Major Alfred Brant, Superintendant of the Kansas City Workhouse. What is a workhouse you might ask? It is a prison facility for petty criminals to work off their sentences. The workhouse was built in 1897 to replace the old workhouse which was located across the street. The old workhouse was unfit for humans according to newspaper articles of the time. The overcrowding was so bad the mayor had pardoned many prisoners on the grounds of humanity. It was also a fire trap as each cell was keyed differently. In the event of a fire, it would have been extremely difficult if not impossible to get all the prisoners out. They used prisoners to quarry the stone used for the new building from the on-site quarry. They were not allowed to help with the actual construction of the prison. I’m sure it was hard work but I’m just as sure some felt relieved to be outdoors and not cramped up in a small cell with sometimes up to 8 or 9 other prisoners.
Kansas City Workhouse
So you might wonder why they designed a prison to look like a castle? According to newspaper articles there was no real reason for it. They wanted it to be a substanial building and different from other public buildings in this area of the country. Since it didn’t cost anymore to make it look like a castle then it would to make it look like a normal prison, they went for it. They were able to complete the project for $30,000. It remained a workhouse until 1918 when they converted it into city office space. It was used in that capacity until the 1970′s. At that time, the city abandoned it. They bricked up the doors and windows and tore out the floors. It is pretty much just a shell of a building now. If you do get a chance to go see it, make sure you go in the daytime and don’t go alone. It isn’t located in the best part of town.
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Kansas City Workhouse
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Kansas City Workhouse
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Overgrown Inside
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Inside Workhouse
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Outside Workhouse
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Possibly Old Cells
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Inside Workhouse
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KC Workhouse
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KC Workhouse
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KC Workhouse
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KC Workhouse
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KC Workhouse
