Squirrel Cage Jail: History and Paranormal Reports

The Squirrel Cage Jail in Council Bluffs is strange before anyone mentions ghosts. Its rotating cell system made the building one of the most unusual jail designs of its era.

The rotary jail idea

The Historical Society of Pottawattamie County traces the concept to a patented rotating-cell design intended to let a single jailer control a large cell block with minimal movement. The pie-shaped cells rotated around a central mechanism so that only one section aligned with the exit at a time.

That mechanical design gives the building a distinctive atmosphere today. Visitors are not walking through a typical line of cells; they are looking at an experiment in incarceration and efficiency from the 19th century.

Paranormal reports from the people who know the building

The same historical society also maintains a paranormal archive for the jail. Staff, visitors and investigators have reported footsteps, apparitions, voices and feelings of being watched in different parts of the building.

Importantly, the society also records skeptical overnight visits where nothing unusual happened. That makes the archive more useful than a one-sided haunted-location claim because it preserves both the experiences and the absence of experiences.

A place where history does the heavy lifting

The Squirrel Cage Jail is a strong example of how to cover paranormal history responsibly. The building is objectively unusual, its jail history is well documented, and the paranormal reputation comes from a long record of reported experiences rather than a single copied legend. Whether those reports point to anything supernatural is still open to interpretation.