...WAIT! There's MO!

Besides the old prison itself, the price of admission also includes The Montana Law Enforcement Museum (actually a set-aside area within the old prison), Frontier Montana Museum, Desert John's Saloon Museum, and the Montana Auto Museum!

Whew. What a goldmine of cool stuff!

But before I get to those, here's another photo from the prison:


That's some contraband confiscated from prisoners and other related artifacts including weighed down shoes (twenty pound concrete soles, for likely escapee prisoners) and a set of locks used in a lock-picking 'school', set up by inmates. They also had the bazooka used by the Montana National Guard to help suppress a prison riot in 1959.


The Montana Law Enforcement Museum was pretty minimal, but it was being revised and expanded. All that was open was a memorial for officers slain in the line of duty, and some sample uniforms. (See lead photo of the memorial above)

The Frontier Montana Museum was small but very impressive. EVERYTHING there was of extremely high quality, for a museum exhibit. I don't have many photos from there, as my camera battery decided to take a dump, and I was too lazy to go back to the car for another one. It was a mini-version of the Buffalo Bill Center in Cody, with an emphasis on just Montana history. All sorts of artifacts and curios are exhibited from gambler's tools of the trade to firearms and military regalia. All sorts of pioneer stuff, too. Pretty cool.

The two shots I did take, before that camera battery pooped out, are of a replica of a sheriff/town marshal office. Except for a few of the antiques, it doesn't look much different than my home office.

I guess some things never change.




Desert John's Saloon Museum was an odd place. It is an attached section of the Frontier museum which was basically an old saloon bar and accouterments and a massive collection of liquor bottles. I mean, they had walls of shelves filled with empty booze bottles and crockery. Now, I am no bottle collector, so I just glanced around a bit as I sauntered through. I did notice a few from some now defunct Seattle distillery. Who knew Seattle provided spirits to cowboys, miners, and ranchers in them olden days? Again, no photos by me. Visit the website link above.

Now the Montana Auto Museum was something to behold. USA Today rates it as one of the 10 Best auto collections in the country. From the outside it doesn't look like much. It looks rather small. Once inside I understood. They jammed the cars in there like sardines. There's about 120 cars in the collection. Here's a few choice bits:






Forgive the photo quality as it wasn't lighted very well and my tiny camera's flash wasn't up to the job at hand. If you are wondering about that camouflaged VW dune buggy in the first photo, that was used in the film The Road Warrior (Mad Max II). How that ended up in Montana, I'll leave for you to figure out. I think it would be more at home in Wyoming.

Another little treasure Deer Lodge, Montana had was a shop that sold crafts made by Montana prison inmates. The shop is nestled among the museums I visited. They had all sorts of things, but mostly equestrian and cowboy related items: tack, bridles, hat bands, belts, etc. All of it was was extremely high quality and expensive. A nice decorated belt (I think it was braided/woven porcupine quills on leather) was $250.00! But it was gorgeous and the craftsmanship impeccable. If I was into cowboy fashion, I would have bought it. They also had some inmate "art" of varying quality; lots of nekkid wimmin and such. Heh. (No I didn't buy anything!)

Even Mo Montana!

With Reggie's Bucket-O-Dirt safely in my Challenger's trunk, I headed back west. I had nothing planned before my next "scheduled" stop in Idaho, so I just cruised along, wondering if I should attempt to beat my previous 150 mph sprint in Montana while listening to some tunes on the satellite radio. Boy, that device is certainly handy out in the middle of the boonies. I can remember listening to farm reports, Country & Western music, and the occasional news blurb when I had to scan the AM/FM radio, back in the old days. Even the old music cassettes got old after the second or third listening. For some reason, Wang Chung's Points on the Curve still reminds me of Eastern Oregon, since my last road trip in 1985.

I didn't have much luck finding a motel in Butte, Montana. Then again, I didn't look very hard. For some unknown reason, something was pushing me to go beyond. So, I kept driving. I decided to use my car's navigation system for a motel, and one was found up the road a ways in a town called Deer Lodge.

Well, the listed motel wasn't in Deer Lodge, after all. I guess I should spend the $199 to get the 2009 database updated. So, I looked around and first passed on a corporate chain place and found a small Mom & Pop joint. Unfortunately, they didn't have a room suitable for my needs. I was not about to chase Aleksandra out from under the bed at check-out time. But, in my search for lodging I did find an unexpected treasure. In the darkness I found the old Montana State Prison museum. That meant I HAD to find a place to stay, because my next day was instantly planned. I ended up getting a room at a corporate joint.

Now let me explain something first. I had read about the Old Prison Museum in a tourist pamphlet I had picked up in the vestibule of a Perkin's restaurant somewhere along the way. It looked like a cool place to visit, but a glance told me it was in some obscure place, probably not worth tracking down. Well, that wasn't true. It's actually just a stone's throw from the interstate. How I got the idea it was off in the boonies, I can't explain. Perhaps I was too hungry to read it carefully. Then again it could merely be the result of cranial flatulence. In any event, fate had drawn me to this spot, and I wasn't disappointed.


Now I know some of you won't click on the link provided, so I'll post a brief blurb of its history from their site:

"Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Old Montana Prison was built by inmate labor, this turn-of-the-century fortress was home to at least one member of Butch Cassidy's "Wild Bunch"...Stout iron bars slammed shut and locked for the first time on July 2, 1871. On that day, Montana's Territorial Prison in Deer Lodge incarcerated its first occupant...Emptied of prisoners in the late 1970s, the buildings stand now as silent sentinels to justice, a museum complex dedicated to law enforcement..."

Now I have visited prisons and jails before (DUH), but this was the first time to see one from the "Good Old Days". It was obvious that this place was built with no thought to "rehabilitation". It was strictly HARD TIME HOTEL.



It doesn't look very inviting, does it? The first inside the wall photo, is from the closest spot where a prisoner could approach the administration building without permission. One more step forward, and he could be shot by the guards.

The interior, cell block photo is on the sunny side. That's as bright as the prison gets. This was at about noon on a bright summer day.














A typical cell. (Yes, they did wear Stripes at one time).




And a women's cell.

































"The Yard" ...







and "The Hole".

The "Hole" was just a small, bare room in the lowest level. The only furnishings were two buckets: a water bucket and a "Honey Pot". Bread and water everyday except for a regular meal once a week.