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The sole federal execution chamber in the United States is in a place called Terre Haute—the high ground—in far western Indiana, named for a swath of land that rises above the nearby Wabash River. The surrounding country is in fact flat and wide, precipitously exposed to the sky.
The prison complex—south of downtown via Route 150, past the dome and bell tower of the Vigo County courthouse, and after the Tire Barn on Spring Hill Road—comprises the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution and the maximum-security U.S. Penitentiary, the home of the Special Confinement Unit: death row and the death house, a low, windowless building of dark-red brick on the northern edge of the grounds.