Pay no mind to the beard-hands, this is I guess a real prisoner and guard pair right here. |
Any traveler of the Interstate-90 corridor through Montana will surely see signs for the Deer Lodge Prison Museum Complex, assuming they have eyes in their heads and some amount of brain connected to it. Personally I can’t read, but I have people who do that for me so I was keenly aware these billboards existed from the time I hit the state line, and so I count myself in the know. The complex is much more than that, but the Prison Museum is the heart, and if you miss it, you’re really missing it.
Deer Lodge is arguably the second oldest city in the state, and if you believe everything you’re told, as I’m pretty sure I do, you’ll also enjoy the “Last Spike” monument they have in town. That’s the thing dedicated to memorializing the final spike laid in the transcontinental railroad allegedly a mere handful of miles down the road.
They actually mean the last spike of the Northern Pacific, which is in fact near Deer Lodge. Most people think of the last spike in Promentory, Utah. Let’s not take that away from them, they really don’t have anything else to cling to aside from dust farming, and I fear they need it for their very survival. Last I heard, rail service had actually been discontinued to that town, so let them keep that one, ancient, irrelevant victory.
The Deer Lodge Prison Museum Complex is an unfortunately inadequate name for the myriad interesting joys this town has to offer. The complex includes a world-class car museum, toy museum, frontier village, and too many more things to list in this article.
LEFT: The view from the brochure is every bit as good as the view from the curb (and inside) the Deer Lodge Prison Museum. It's like Shawshank Redemption, except that your dramatic breakout is not only permitted, but required prior to closing. You wouldn't want to spend the night though, trust me.
So let’s talk about the prison museum, because it’s interesting enough to earn its whole, own article.
This was the site of the first federal prison in the West, the first territorial prison, and the first state prison. No, they weren’t all stacked on top of each other, they were the very same property, they just kept changing the ownership, but never the purpose, of the buildings.
This was a very different time in American prisoning, as I’ve come to learn. Almost the entire place was built with prison labor, something the conservative campaign contributors would never permit today, even though it might be in the better interest of our nation as a whole.
Because it was built with prison labor, they could give a little more comfort than they can today. That means the theater constructed from inmate use alone was more spacious and comfortable than many modern facilities.
And inmates weren’t treated like subhuman pieces of cow-maddened livestock either. The local townsfolk were allowed to come in from time to time to play official baseball games against the inmate team.
RIGHT: As much as it may look like a fun, creepy experience, there's nothing fun about the creepiness of the tunnel system at the Old Prison Museum Complex in Deer Lodge, Montana. The tunnels had shooting access to almost every room in the prison, and no matter how determined the prisoners were, they never defeated this line of defense, not even in the riot of 1958, when the catwalks were conquered.
Baseball aside, these guys were allowed to spend their time in repayment of societal debt training for future jobs. What could stop a lowly thief from going back to his terrible ways quicker than a trade in upholstery, construction, roadwork or any number of other things, often combined with high school or higher education.
Do they do that anymore? I’m not an authority, but I’m reasonably sure the answer is mostly no. The budget isn’t there because the programs are short-sighted. Besides, if we teach men to fish they’ll just empty the ocean and put cod on the endangered list, right? Better to let them starve, I guess.
I know all this because the old infirmary and one-time work facility is now a “prison life” exhibit where you can check out all about what they used to do to occupy themselves, complete with pictures and tourists scoffing at how easy it was to be a prisoner… I disagree, but I know what it’s like to be confined to a corner for 180-seconds at a stretch, so there you go.
While I’m on the subject, let me tell you a joke. How many prison guards does it take to throw an inmate down a flight of stairs? None, he fell.
I don’t get it, but I heard my dad tell it to a guy in a correctional officer’s uniform at the gas station the other day and, as gruff as he was, he thought it was pretty darn funny, so if you can’t laugh at it with me, maybe we should share a sob together.
The prison began in 1871 and was finally decommissioned in 1979 after inmates had finally completed their migratory transition to the newer facility on a different campus. And not a minute too soon, as the retro kitsch era was about to begin, at which point it might have been considered cool to be thusly interned.
Guests to the prison (as we’re now called, since we aren’t convicted of anything) can enjoy guided or self-guided tours, or just wander around as we see fit. The entrance is in the heart of town on Main Street (where I-90 used to run), and if you can’t find it, you need to either open your eyes or ask anyone in the tri-county area where you missed your turn. It’s open 7-days a week year round, but check their web site for latest rates and hours before you go.
ABOVE: Some inmates were so terrible they only got small cells off of this courtyard, and were then only permitted to spend all day outside in the sunshine contemplating why they'd wish to be mistaken for an upstanding inmate anyhow.
ABOVE: Much as the jesting pose may suggest, this is not a fun place. This is the building where the majority of cells were located. It's a four-story monstery with nothing but concrete and steel all around it, and fairly current exhibits that show what cell life was really like.
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