1870-1979 Montana State Prison Museum
1106 Main Street, Deer Lodge, MT 59722
Age
All Ages for daytime; minimum age 15 for overnight paranormal events (under 18 with parent/guardian)
Cost
$$
Daytime admission $15 adults, $8 children 10-15, free under 10. Overnight paranormal investigation pricing separate; check Powell County Museum and Arts Foundation.
Access
Limited Access
Historic prison yard with stone cellblocks, towers, and uneven yards
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1870 · Montana Territorial Prison (1871-1889) · Montana State Prison (1889-1979) · Site of 1959 Inmate Riot · National Register of Historic Places
Construction of the Montana Territorial Prison began in Deer Lodge in 1870. The facility received its first inmates in 1871, and continued in use through Montana's 1889 admission to statehood, when it became the Montana State Prison. Inmates quarried local sandstone for the prison's distinctive walls and constructed major buildings over the following decades, including the Cell House and the Women's Prison.
The prison's most-recounted event is the 1959 inmate riot. Beginning on April 16, 1959, inmates seized control of the facility for approximately 36 hours. The deputy warden Theodore Rothe was killed during the takeover, and the warden was held hostage as inmates demanded improvements in conditions. The Montana National Guard was called in, and the riot ended with the inmates' surrender. The episode was covered internationally and is part of the museum's interpretive program.
The prison continued operating until 1979, when remaining inmates were transferred to the new Montana State Prison west of Deer Lodge. The Powell County Museum and Arts Foundation acquired the property and developed the broader nine-acre five-museum complex, which includes the prison itself plus the Montana Auto Museum (with more than 160 vehicles), Yesterday's Playthings toy museum, the Powell County Museum, and the Montana Frontier Museum.
The Old Montana Prison is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sources
The Powell County Museum and Arts Foundation has operated structured paranormal investigations and ghost tours at the Old Montana Prison since the late 1990s. The staff maintains a reports log from visitors, investigators, and museum personnel covering nearly three decades of after-hours access.
Reports concentrate in three areas. The first is the Death Tower, the prison's elevated isolation cell, where visitors describe a heaviness of air, cold pockets, and intermittent voices. The second is the upper tier of the main Cell House, where the 1959 riot was concentrated and where reported phenomena include footsteps, distant clanging on metal bars, and the sense of a presence at the end of long corridor sightlines. The third is the Women's Prison, where visitor accounts include voices reading as female and the sound of crying.
The Foundation's overnight investigation program runs from 8pm to 2am and includes areas of the prison not open during daytime hours. The minimum age is 15; minors must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
The site has appeared in regional Montana tourism press and on televised paranormal programming. The Foundation presents the reports as documentary artifact and emphasizes the historical record of the prison's operation alongside the paranormal vocabulary.
Tour the Old Montana Prison cellblocks, watch towers, women's prison, and adjacent five-museum complex covering 9 acres operated by the Powell County Museum and Arts Foundation. The complex includes Montana Auto Museum (160+ vehicles), Montana Frontier Museum, Powell County Museum, and the Yesterday's Playthings toy museum.
Evening ghost tours through the cellblocks and yard discuss the prison's 109-year operation, the 1959 inmate riot in which a deputy warden was murdered and the National Guard was called in, and the visitor and staff reports of unexplained activity collected since the prison's 1980 conversion to a museum.
Overnight investigations from 8pm to 2am offer access to restricted areas including the Death Tower and the upper tiers of the Cell House. Minimum age 15; under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Petros, TN
Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary opened in 1896 in the aftermath of Tennessee's Coal Creek War, built in part by the convicts who would subsequently mine coal on the same grounds. The prison operated for 113 years before closing in 2009, housing notable inmates including James Earl Ray — the convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. — who made a 1977 escape using a pipe ladder and was recaptured after 54 hours.
Deer Lodge, MT
The Montana Territorial Prison in Deer Lodge received its first inmate on July 2, 1871. The cornerstone was laid June 2, 1870, after the territorial government selected Deer Lodge as the site in 1867. The prison served as Montana's primary penal institution from its 1871 opening through 1979, when a new facility replaced it. A 1959 riot held the prison and surrounding town under inmate control for 36 hours, killing three people. The facility was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
Boise, ID
The Old Idaho State Penitentiary, also known as the Old Pen, opened in 1872 as the Idaho Territorial Prison on a site outside Boise. The facility operated for 101 years, holding more than 13,000 inmates including over 200 women and children as young as ten and eleven. The prison closed in 1973 following inmate riots and is now operated as a museum by the Idaho State Historical Society.