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P.O. Box 19423
Lenexa,
KS 66285
913-708-5119
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MONTANA LEGENDS
Old Prison Museum in Deerlodge
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Like other fledgling territories in 19th century American West,
Montana had
become wild when the gold rush attracted not only those wishing to find
their fortunes, but also thieves, gamblers, and murderers. For
several years following the gold discoveries of 1862, the
Montana
Vigilantes took it upon themselves to punish these many offenders in
the lawless land of
Montana.
Finally, seeing a need for more organized forms of law enforcement, the
Montana
Territorial Legislature requested funds for a prison during its winter
session of 1866-67. The United States Congress agreed that the
territory needed a prison, approved the request for funding, and
Deer Lodge was chosen for the site of the new Territorial Prison.
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Old Montana
Prison Museum, courtesy
Powell
County Museums
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However, they soon
found that the funding was inadequate causing revisions to the plans
and many delays. Construction finally began in the spring of
1870 with convict labor, and the prison finally received its first
convict on July 2, 1871.
Almost from the
beginning, the prison was deemed inadequate and overcrowded, a
condition that would result in slow, but continual construction at the
prison for the next fifty years. When
Montana
became the forty-first state on November 8, 1889, the prison became
Montana's
responsibility. Finding it expensive to operate, the Board of
Prison Commissioners contracted out the entire Prison operation in
1890. Colonel Thomas McTague and Frank Conley of Deer Lodge
received the contract, which paid them seventy cents per prisoner per
day.
Frank Conley became
the new warden, a post that he would continue to hold until 1921.
Over the next thirty years, Conley shaped the philosophy and
appearance of the prison. Believing the prisoners should work,
Conley began to update the prison by first replacing its twelve-foot
wooden fence with the massive sandstone wall in 1893. Four and a
half feet thick, the wall formed a solid perimeter for the prison.
He also began to build a new log cell house to reduce the prison
crowding.
As a further measure
to reduce crowding, put the prisoners to work, and generate income
from the prison, outside prison camps were established where prisoners
would live and be “hired out” for both public and private work.
This worked so well that by the late 1890’s approximately one-third of
the prisoners worked outside the prison. At these camps, which
housed about 75 prisoners each, inmates enjoyed a relatively high
degree of freedom with neither chains nor cells restricting them.
However, “outside work” was a privilege, and the slightest infraction
of the rules would immediately send a prisoner back behind prison
walls.
By the second decade of the twentieth
century, about fifty percent of the inmates were working outside the
penitentiary, traveling throughout
Montana
erecting numerous state buildings, paving more than five hundred miles
of roads, and working on eleven different ranches that provided food
for state-owned institutions.
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Vintage Clark Theater built in 1919, courtesy
Powell
County Museums
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Inside the prison walls,
construction also continued with the building of a women’s prison,
additional dormitories for the men, a store building, laundry, and dining
room. In 1919, a 1,000 seat prison theater was built with funding
donated by Senator William A. Clark, Jr.
Protests from labor unions and security concerns put an end to outside
work in the 1920s, however, food production continued at the
thirty-thousand-acre prison-owned ranch. Work inside the prison continued
in various industries including cobbler and upholstery shops, and a
garment industry that made clothes for state wards. A state license
plate factory began production in the late 1920’s.
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Though Conley’s
administration made drastic improvements to the prison, it continually
suffered from overcrowding, and in 1979, it was abandoned in favor of a
new facility, five miles west of Deer Lodge.
Empty of prisoners and
standing as a silent sentinel to justice, the Powell County Museum and
Arts Foundation obtained the building's lease for use as a museum.
After some restoration and the construction of a visitor’s center, the
complex reopened in 1980, providing tours to more than 40,000 visitors
each year.
Listed on the National Registry of Historic
Places, visitors to the museum can take guided or self-guided tours
through several of the prison’s buildings, glimpsing the daily life of
prison routines. As visitors walk through the intimidating cell
houses, Informational signs provide details of prison life where
tourists will continue to see original schedules, rules, prisoner artwork,
and even moldering blankets on many of the iron cots in its prison cells.
More lurid displays show a “Prison Life” photo exhibit, contraband items
and homemade weapons; and guns, shackles and restraints utilized on the
convicts.
Evidence of a 1959 riot
can be seen in the shattered bricks of the west tower, cramped blackout
cells can be toured, and the gallows that once hanged capital offenders
remain for those of us with a morbid curiosity.
Though guards no longer
occupy the turrets in each corner of “The Wall,” nor do the sounds of
heavy cell doors sliding shut echo through the buildings, the tour can
make even the most hardened visitor welcome their “release” into the
grassy center yard.
The
Old Montana
Prison Museum is just one of several museums sponsored by the Powell
County Museum and Arts Foundation. In fact, Deer Lodge,
Montana is
home to more museums and historical collections than any other town in the
Northwest. You can also see the Frontier Museum,
Desert John's Saloon Museum and the Powell County Museum, all of which
will transport you back to the era of cowboys and the Old West. The
Montana Auto Museum features over 120 vintage vehicles, and Yesterday's
Playthings is
Montana's foremost doll and toy museum. Cottonwood City displays
the Snowshoe Creek School and the Blood Cabin.
November, 2005
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Guardtower at the
Old Montana
Prison Museum
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Contact Information:
Old Prison Museums
1106 Main St
Deer Lodge,
Montana 59722
406-846-3111
Also See:
Desert John's Saloon Museum
The Writing
of Jerry’s Riot: The True Story of Montana’s 1959 Prison Disturbance
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From the Rocky Mountain General Store
Old
West Postcards - If
you love collecting postcards of the Old West, you're going to love these.
All of these postcards are very unique and we have only one of them, so
don't miss the opportunity to buy now. To see them all, click
HERE!
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