The Haunted Old Allegheny County Jail, Pittsburgh: History and Ghosts

The old Allegheny County Jail is one of the great buildings of Pittsburgh: a granite fortress by the architect H. H. Richardson, completed in 1886 and linked to his Allegheny County Courthouse by a covered stone bridge modeled on the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. For 109 years prisoners crossed that bridge between their cells and the courtrooms. It closed as a jail in 1995 and is now the Family Division of the county’s Court of Common Pleas.

Behind its walls are some of the city’s best-known stories: the warden’s wife who smuggled saws and guns to two condemned brothers and ran away with them, and the ghost of William A. Culp, whose nightly visits to Murderer’s Row made the New York Times. A section of one cell block survives as a small free museum. This guide covers the history, the ghost stories and how to get inside.

History of the Old Allegheny County Jail

Allegheny County’s old courthouse burned on May 7, 1882. The county held a design competition for a new courthouse and jail, and the Boston architect Henry Hobson Richardson won with a single Romanesque Revival complex of rough granite. The courthouse cornerstone was laid in October 1884, and the jail was completed in 1886. He considered the courthouse his finest work, and the complex was named a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

The jail sits behind the courthouse across Ross Street, its massive walls rising straight from the sidewalk. Prisoners went to court across the enclosed Bridge of Sighs, high above the street, so they never had to be walked through the city. Inside, tiers of cells opened off a central rotunda, and the warden had his office in the building.

Its most famous episode came in 1902. Jack and Ed Biddle, leaders of a gang that drugged and robbed victims, had been convicted in December 1901 of murdering a Mount Washington shopkeeper and sentenced to hang. Kate Soffel, wife of the warden, Peter Soffel, ministered to the prisoners and became infatuated with Ed. She smuggled saws and guns into the jail, and early on January 30, 1902, the brothers overpowered and shot their guards and escaped with her. They fled north by trolley and then in a stolen horse and sleigh until a posse led by detective Charles “Buck” McGovern caught them on a farm in Butler County. Both brothers were fatally wounded in the gunfight and died on February 1. Kate Soffel, who was also shot, survived and served two years in prison. The story became the 1984 film Mrs. Soffel, with Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson, which filmed for three days inside the old jail.

The jail stayed in use for most of the 20th century. Allegheny County opened a new jail beside the Allegheny River, and the old one closed on July 27, 1995. Its interior was then rebuilt, at a cost of about $25 million, as the Family Division of the Court of Common Pleas, keeping the rotunda, the cell block walls and the warden’s office, and the courts moved in in 2001.

With a grant from the Drue Heinz Trust, the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation worked with the county and the Juvenile Court to preserve part of one cell block. The Old Allegheny County Jail Museum opened there in 2005, with former deputy warden Ed Urban as curator, and displays on the jail’s history and artifacts from its working years.

The ghosts of the Old Allegheny County Jail

The ghost of Murderer's Row

This is one of the rare ghost stories with a contemporary newspaper report behind it. W. A. Culp was being held in the jail in 1907, awaiting trial for the murder of his brother, when he took his own life in his cell on death row, known as Murderer’s Row.

On September 15, 1907, the New York Times ran a story under the headline “Murderers Saw A Ghost.” The 14 other men on the row said Culp’s ghost came to them every night and kept them awake until daybreak. At first their complaints were ignored, but they kept on until Warden Lewis moved all 14 to another part of the jail, after which, the paper said, the visits stopped. Later retellings, including one by Pittsburgh Magazine in 2021, say his ghost was seen so often that the prisoners demanded to be moved.

The midnight hour

Pittsburgh ghost tour guide Haydn Thomas told KDKA in 2016 that Culp was said to re-enact his crime every night between midnight and 1 AM. The section of the jail that held Murderer’s Row no longer exists in its old form: it is now part of Family Court.

Kate Soffel

The warden’s wife is said to have come back too. In the same KDKA report, Thomas said Kate Soffel still roams the old jail, shuffling papers and touching unsuspecting guards. It is a legend with no record behind it, but it is easy to see why the story attaches itself to her.

Guards' stories and the hangings

Thomas also told of a guard who heard something that “sounded like sand falling through the wall” and later felt a cold hand on his arm. He put the number of hangings at the jail at 58 and said that “after every hanging, there’s a ghost sighting.” We have not been able to confirm that count against official records, so treat it as the tour’s figure.

Where to look

• The museum cell block: the preserved section of original cells, the one part of the old jail you can stand inside.
• The Bridge of Sighs: the enclosed stone bridge over Ross Street that prisoners crossed to court; best seen from the street below.
• The rotunda: the jail’s old central hub, kept in the Family Court conversion.
• Murderer's Row: where Culp died in 1907; that part of the jail is now Family Court and not open to visitors.
• The Ross Street walls: the sheer granite outer walls, most impressive after dark on a walk around the block.

Visiting the Old Allegheny County Jail Museum

The Old Allegheny County Jail Museum is inside the Family Court Building at 440 Ross Street, downtown. It opens on the first and third Mondays of the month, between 11:30 AM and 1 PM, except on court holidays, and you can drop in any time in that window. Admission is free, and Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation docents are on hand to tell the story of the jail. Dates are listed on the PHLF and VisitPittsburgh event calendars.

Because it is a working courthouse, you enter through the main Ross Street entrance and pass through a security checkpoint. Cameras are not permitted inside. The museum is across from the vending machine room.

You can see the outside any day. The Bridge of Sighs spans Ross Street between the jail and the courthouse, and the courthouse tower rises behind it. Ghost hunting is not possible here: it is an active court building with security, no cameras and no after-hours access.

Haunted Rooms does not run events at the old jail. For a real investigation in a historic building, our nearest ghost hunts are listed below, including the Cresson Sanatorium and Prison and the Grand Midway Hotel in Windber, both in the Allegheny Mountains east of Pittsburgh.

• Visiting Inside the Family Court building; enter on Ross Street through security
• Tours Free drop-in visits with Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation docents
• Hours and season First and third Mondays of the month, 11:30 AM to 1 PM, except court holidays
• Tickets Free
• Ghost hunting No: it is a working courthouse and cameras are not permitted

Tips for your visit

• Plan around the museum days: it is open only two Mondays a month, for 90 minutes each time.
• Travel light: you go through court security, and cameras are not allowed inside.
• Watch Mrs. Soffel before you go; parts of it were filmed in these cell blocks.
• Come back after dark to see the Bridge of Sighs lit up from Ross Street.
• Combine the visit with the other downtown haunts on our Pittsburgh guide.

More haunted places nearby

• Hill View Manor, New Castle: a former county home about an hour north, open for overnight investigations
• Cresson Sanatorium and Prison: a former tuberculosis sanatorium and state prison where Haunted Rooms runs ghost hunts
• Eastern State Penitentiary: Pennsylvania’s most famous haunted prison, in Philadelphia
• Haunted places in Pennsylvania: our full guide to the state
• Haunted places in Pennsylvania
• Haunted places in Pittsburgh

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

• VisitPittsburgh: The Old Allegheny County Jail and Museum (free)
• Allegheny West: Old Allegheny County Jail
• Wikipedia: Allegheny County Courthouse
• Wikipedia: Jack and Ed Biddle
• Heinz History Center: Mrs. Soffel and the Biddle Boys
• Seeks Ghosts: Culp's ghost haunted death row (transcribes the New York Times, September 15, 1907)
• CBS Pittsburgh (KDKA): Ghosts of Pittsburgh: Old Allegheny County Jail (2016)
• Pittsburgh Magazine: Six of Pittsburgh's supernatural spots hidden in plain sight downtown (2021)