Rising Tides and Fallen Heroines at Alton

What was to become the military prison at Alton, Illinois began as a state penitentiary in 1833.  However, Dorthea Dix declared the facility unfit to house inmates due to its dirt floors and unsanitary conditions.  It closed in 1860, and the prisoners were then transferred to a new facility located in Joliet outside Chicago. It reopened two years later as a military prison with the first Confederate prisoners arriving by steamer from the overcrowded Gratiot Street Military Prison in St. Louis, a little over 20 miles south of Alton.

http://madison.illinoisgenweb.org/prison.html