The Montana State Prison is an American men's correctional facility of the Montana Department of Corrections in unincorporated Powell County, Montana, about west of Deer Lodge."Montana State Prison Montana Department of Corrections. Retrieved on July 27, 2021. "Address: 400 Conley Lake Road; Deer Lodge, MT; 59722". The current facility was constructed between 1974 and 1979 in response to the continued degeneration of the original facility located in downtown Deer Lodge.
The "Old Prison" () served as the Montana Territorial Prison from its creation in 1871 until Montana achieved statehood in 1889, then continued as the primary penal institution for the State of Montana until 1979. Throughout the prison's history, the institution was plagued with constant overcrowding, insufficient funds, and antiquated facilities. The administration of Warden Frank Conley from 1890 to 1921 proved the exception to this rule, as Warden Conley instituted extensive inmate labor projects that kept many inmates at work constructing the prison buildings and walls as well as providing various state and community services like road building, logging, and ranching.
After Conley left office, the prison experienced almost forty years of degeneration, mismanagement, and monetary restraints until an explosive riot in 1959 captured the attention of the nation. Led by Jerry Myles and Lee Smart, the riot maintained the prison under inmate control for thirty-six hours before the Montana National Guard stormed the institution to restore order. The facility was retired in September 1979, and the inmates were moved to the current prison. The Old Prison was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and is now a museum.
Territorial prison
Facility history In response to rampant lawlessness and the vigilante-style form of justice present in the newly formed Montana Territory, in 1867 the US Congress allotted $40,000 to Montana for the express purpose of constructing a territorial prison.Edgerton, p. 28. On November 19, 1867, the territorial government chose Deer Lodge as the site of the facility, and on June 2, 1870, the cornerstone was laid.Kent, p. 9. The original plans for the building called for a structure which held three tiers of fourteen cells, but due to the difficulty of acquiring materials, the cost to ship those materials, and the expense of hiring labor, the new building would house only one of the three tiers. On July 2, 1871, US Marshal William Wheeler took possession of the first nine prisoners to be incarcerated in the facility.Edgerton, p. 35.
It only took a single month before the prison was overcrowded; by August, six more prisoners had arrived.Edgerton, p. 36. The burgeoning population was quelled somewhat when, in June 1874, another tier of fourteen cells was constructed, and the civilians of Deer Lodge were calmed when a twelve foot board fence went up in 1875.Baumler, p. 8. The prison's population continued to grow, so Congress allocated an additional $15,000 for the construction of another tier of cells, but the soft brick of the building could not support any more weight. Instead, the money went into an administration building with guard barracks, a warden's office, and a visitor's reception.Edgerton, p. 42. Finally, in 1885, $25,000 served to provide the prison with a three-story cellblock with 42 double-occupancy cells which was completed in 1886. The Montana Territorial Prison was finally completed to original specifications, just in time to be handed over to the new State of Montana in March 1890.Edgerton, p. 70.
Prison life The system of managing inmates at the Montana Territorial Prison was intended to follow the Auburn system of penal reform, a method pioneered at Auburn Prison in New York state in the 1820s. The Auburn system, or the silent system, hinged on prisoners working in groups during the day, maintaining solitary confinement at night, and adhering to a strict code of silence at all times. This rehabilitation method was doomed to fail in Montana, primarily due to the severe overcrowding which plagued the facility from the start.Kent, p. 18.
Within a month of the prison opening its doors, the building was overcrowded. This state of affairs persisted throughout the territorial years, reaching its peak in 1885. In that year, 120 inmates were incarcerated at the institution which claimed only 28 cells, or four inmates per cell.Edger ton, p. 41. Inmates camped on the prison grounds, but it wasn't until the completion of the 1886 cell block with its 42 double-occupancy cells and a round of generous paroles that the prison felt relief.Edger ton, p. 43.
Although the completion of the cell block meant a roof over a prisoner's head, the amenities of the facility were sparse. The cells measured × , were constructed of soft brick, and had no plumbing or artificial lights. The building had no heating or ventilation, and, in a region which often experienced temperatures below in the winter and above in the summer, this made for very uncomfortable tenants. To alleviate the discomfort, the administration used wood stoves to heat the building and oil lamps to light it, the smoke from which combined with the stench of bucketed human waste and unwashed bodies to make the environment rank.
The prison hired a physician to keep the inmates somewhat healthy but provided no pharmaceuticals; any drugs required to administer to the inmates had to be purchased using his own salary. Between May and November 1873, the overworked doctor reported 67 illnesses in a population of 21 inmates, or about three maladies per prisoner during a span of six months.Edger ton, p. 47. These sicknesses can be mostly attributed to the crowded, unsanitary conditions of the prison itself and to the poor quality of food provided to the inmates. Since the prison was operating on a shoestring budget, it had to feed the inmates with what the territory could provide. Therefore, few fruits and vegetables found their way into the diet, and the inmates made do with a menu heavy in proteins and starch.Edger ton, p. 46.
Warden Conley years Montana became a state in November 1889, but the fledgling state had neither the will nor the money to assume possession of the prison until March 1890. The facility was a money-sink, costing over $2 per day per inmate to run, an eyesore, and an administerial nightmare. Montana decided to do what many other states at the time were doing; they contracted the running of the prison to a pair of men who offered to care for the inmates at the rate of $.70 per day per inmate for the first 100, and $1.00 per day for each inmate over. These men were the warden of the facility since 1885, Thomas McTague, and his partner, Guard Frank Conley.
Warden Frank Conley Born on 28 February 1864 in Havre de Grace, Maryland,Kent, p. 21 Frank Conley set off for the American West at the age of sixteen and landed in Montana, working to create what would later become Yellowstone National Park.Baumler, p. 15. By 1884, he was a member of the Central Montana Vigilance CommitteeEdgerton, p. 69. and later became Deputy Sheriff of Custer County, Montana. In 1886, he supervised a prisoner transport to Deer Lodge, and, upon learning of a vacancy in the ranks of the guards, immediately took the post. In March 1890, he ascended to the position of Warden of the Montana State Prison, while McTague remained more-or-less aloof from the administration of the prison, focusing his attentions on the financial backing of the institution. Conley oversaw everything else and launched a series of projects which made the Montana State Prison function.
Conley builds Possibly the most important, or at least longest lasting, contribution Warden Conley made to the Montana State Prison are the plethora of buildings he left in his wake. He believed that idleness bred insurrection, so he set about using prison labor to build the prison.
At first, Conley focused on bettering the prison facility. Immediately after taking the position of warden, he put the inmates to work to build a log cell-house to alleviate the rampant overcrowding. The building housed 150 inmates in one large room in two tiers of wooden bunks, and was used on and off over the course of the next decade.
Conley waited for a few years before starting one of his biggest projects—the prison walls. In 1893, he put his prisoners to work to construct the 20 to high walls which extended underground for four feet and were ft. thick underground and tapered to two feet thick at the top. The wall was constructed of locally quarried sandstone mined, shaped, mortared, and placed by prison labor. The walls had six towers, a sally port to admit vehicles, and a smaller portal to admit people. The imposing structure with its crenellated towers dominates the southern end of Main Street Deer Lodge and resembles a medieval castle.Baumler, p. 17Edgerton, p. 74.
In 1896, Conley deemed the old Territorial Penitentiary insufficient, even after remodeling it to house 164 inmates, so he constructed the first of two cellblocks. The 1896 Cellblock bordered the Territorial building on its southern side and could house 256 inmates in four tiers of thirty-two cells, each measuring long, deep, and tall. None of these cells had plumbing, however, and inmates again used the bucket system: one for fresh water, the other for human waste.Baumler, p. 19. Each door locked individually, which, when combined with the wood stoves which heated the building and the wooden roof, created a safety hazard in the case of a fire. Electricity didn't enter the building until after the start of the 20th century, but this building was a marked improvement from the antiquated Territorial building.
In 1902, in response to concerns over women's rights, Conley built a separate building outside the walls for his female prisoners. It was a small, stuffy building with no plumbing and a tiny exercise yard, but it gave the women inmates a degree of separation and safety they had previously been denied. This building would eventually be converted into a maximum security facility in 1959 in response to the riot which happened in that year, and Montana's women prisoners would eventually be moved to their own prison.Baumler, p. 45.
1911 saw an extension of the original walls by . Tower Seven, in the middle of the eastern wall which bordered Main Street, became the main entrance to the prison and would remain so until the facility closed.Baumler, p. 49.
To respond to the ever-increasing number of inmates flooding the Montana correctional system, in 1912 Conley supervised the building of another cellblock. Called "Cellblock 1" by guards and prisoners, the building sandwiched the old Territorial building between itself and the 1896 cellblock, now called "Cellblock 2". The building was made of cut granite and prison-made brick, could house 400 prisoners in 200 cells along two corridors of four tiers of 25 cells each, and came complete with a sink and self-flushing toilet in each cell, a ventilation system, and a door-locking system which could open any combination of doors simultaneously.Baumler, pp. 49-51.
In 1919, Warden Conley's personal friend William A. Clark, one of Butte, Montana's Copper Kings, donated $10,000 for the construction of a first in US Prison history—a prison theater. Dubbed the WA Clark Theatre, the pride of the Montana State Prison was completed in March 1920.Baumler, p. 64 It boasted seating for 1,000 people in leather-covered seats and catered to prisoners and members of the community alike.Baumler, p. 66. It hosted concerts, plays, prizefights, movies, and more. For Conley, it became an instant disciplinary tool; unruly inmates were denied access to the theater. The theater was a mainstay of prison life until its destruction by an unknown arsonist on 3 December 1975.Kent, p. 82.