FCI McDowell sits in Welch, West Virginia, deep in the Appalachian coalfields of McDowell County, on land that was previously used for surface coal mining before the prison was built there. Community hearings were held back in 2004 as the Bureau of Prisons weighed the county as a site, and local residents were reportedly nearly unanimous in supporting the project because of the jobs it promised to a region that had been hit hard by the decline of the coal industry. Construction wrapped up and the medium-security institution opened in 2010, at a cost of over $200 million, with an adjoining minimum-security satellite camp for male offenders built alongside it. It's one of the newer entries in the federal system and part of a broader pattern of the Bureau of Prisons locating facilities in economically struggling rural areas partly for the employment they bring. For families, McDowell's location in far southern West Virginia is quite isolated, tucked into mountainous terrain with limited nearby infrastructure, so planning visits usually means budgeting extra travel time no matter where you're starting from.