Folsom’s allure is confined to its visitors (even Cash)

The music and the moment caught the collective consciousness and haven’t let go. Hollywood has reaped the Folsom mystique to make “The Jericho Mile,’’ “The Outlaws,’’ “Riot in Cell Block 11,’’ and the Cash biopic, “Walk the Line,’’ for which actors Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon performed in the prison’s Greystone Chapel.

“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.

We visited the various cellblocks (one is the largest in the nation at five stories high with 1,300 inmates supervised by gun-toting guards on catwalks) and toured the factory-like work sites. We saw the license plate shop (up to 30,000 are made per day), the print shop, the welding shop (the highest-paying jobs in the facility at 95 cents an hour), the furniture shop, and the stunning Folsom Project for the Visually Impaired, a high-tech center with advance computer programming where inmates translate school texts and library books into Braille.

Terry Harris, the inmate who leads the center, said proudly that he has four standing job offers if he ever gets out. I asked what he was in for, and he matter-of-factly said, “I killed a guy when I was 18. I’m 43 now and hope to get out next January.’’ You could have heard a pin drop in our tour group.

We then went to the main outdoor yard, where 750 inmates at a time are permitted for recreation. We walked among the throngs; many inmates relaxed and played cards or ran around a dirt track. We stopped by the Greystone Chapel, where all religions are honored and which houses an amazing inmate painting of the Last Supper. The song “Greystone Chapel,’’ written by inmate Glen Sherley, is on Cash’s live album. (Cash was never an inmate of Folsom, though he did serve time in several county jails.)

The tour lasted nearly three hours. We even wound up visiting the no-longer-used death row (San Quentin now has the state’s only death row). It was an experience I’ll never forget. I drove off and decompressed by walking through the nearby Folsom Historic District, a nifty, retro-themed array of restaurants, bars, and craft shops. Above all, I was thankful for my freedom.

Steve Morse can be reached at spmorse@gmail.com.