Old Montana Prison

Overcrowding reached a critical point by the spring of 1896. The cell capacity of 182 was exceeded by 150 prisoners who were confined in a single log building without cells. The log building was deemed "insecure, unsafe and liable to destruction by fire" by the State Board of Prison Commissioners. On April 27, 1896, the Board authorized the construction of a new cell house.
Utilizing inmate labor under the supervision of the Board's superintendent of construction, James MacCalman, the 1896 cell house was constructed in less than one year. Inmate crews quarried the stone for the foundation and quarried and cut the granite for construction. They quarried and fired their own lime and dug the sand for the mortar. They manufactured and fired some 1,200,463 bricks. They laid the brick and stone and even cut the lumber used in the building.
The building had four tiers of thirty-two cells each in the men's quarters, with a capacity of 256 prisoners. The youths' quarters contained two tiers of eight cells each with a capacity of 32 prisoners. All cells were six feet wide, eight feet long, and seven feet four inches high. There was no plumbing in the cells.
The building was demolished after it received structural damage in an earthquake in 1959.

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Show me all markers in:  Deer Lodge, MT  |  Powell County  |  59722  |  Montana  |  United States of America

1870-1931 Federal Building
1931 Administration Building
1959 Riot Historical
The Old Montana Prison
Execution of George Rock
1912 Cell House
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Deer Lodge Post Office

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