{"id":1731,"slug":"old-montana-prison-deer-lodge-montana","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["On the afternoon of April 16, 1959, at guard-change time inside the Montana State Prison at Deer Lodge, two inmates jumped two guards carrying .30-caliber rifles. Within the hour Deputy Warden Theodore Rothe was dead in his own office — shot, the record says, by nineteen-year-old Lee Smart — and the prison had a riot that would hold the institution for thirty-six hours. The ringleaders took twenty-three hostages: eighteen prison employees and five inmates the yard had marked as stool pigeons, threatened with being burned alive under rags soaked in flammable liquid.","It ended in the early hours of April 18, when Warden Floyd Powell — brought in from Wisconsin eight months earlier to reform the place — sent fifty National Guardsmen in with bazooka, machine guns and rifles. One bazooka round struck the northwest tower where the ringleaders were headquartered; the scar is still on the wall. Jerry Myles, forty-four, a six-time burglar who scribbled verse, and Smart, who at sixteen had drawn thirty years for clubbing a man to death, were found dead at the top of that tower in what the file records as a murder-suicide."]},{"heading":"The documented record","paragraphs":["The institution predates the state. On January 22, 1867, Congress appropriated no more than $40,000 to erect a prison in Montana Territory; the Legislative Assembly approved the Deer Lodge site that November, over protests from residents who contested the government's claim to the land. Convict labor raised the walls, and the territorial penitentiary was receiving prisoners by 1871 — eighteen years before Montana's star went on the flag. It stayed in service through statehood, through the 1896 and 1912 cell houses, through a 1957 disturbance and a 1958 sit-down strike, until September 1979, when the last inmates were moved to a new prison four miles west of town.","Four months after the riot, an August 1959 earthquake structurally wrecked Cellblock 2 and it was demolished. The rest stayed. The prison went on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 — three years before it closed — and now anchors the Powell County Museum complex: the tunnel guards used to reach the catwalks, the women's ward converted after the riot into twenty maximum-security cells, the isolation cells called the Hole, all kept in place."]},{"heading":"What witnesses file","paragraphs":["The museum runs ghost tours from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., and the guides file reports. Tour leaders Melanie Sanchez and Ronda Martin have told reporters of a woman scratched near the maximum-security cells — visitors are advised not to go there alone — and of a woman's voice yelling 'Help!' through the cell house when no one was present to yell it. Martin describes locking up one night with her husband and hearing a piano playing in an empty room. At the top of the tower where Myles and Smart died, guides run voice recorders and phone apps that claim to translate electronic noise into messages.","Outside investigators add to the file. The Spokane Paranormal Society, locked in overnight in 2018, reported scratches received on the tower stairs, sulfur smells, and nausea among the crew; a medium accompanied them. Commercial outfits now sell overnight lock-ins with equipment included — EMF readers, infrared cameras — and the route runs through the Hole, where the record notes a 26-year-old inmate died of heart failure on Halloween night 1966."]},{"heading":"What remains","paragraphs":["What remains is the unusual case of a haunting with paperwork. The names attached to the reported activity — Rothe, Myles, Smart — are in the riot file, not just in the folklore, and the tower where the lore concentrates is the tower the bazooka hit. Whether the footsteps guides report on the upper tiers belong to the 1959 dead or to the acoustics of an empty cell house is not a question the archive settles. The institution ran for 108 years; the tours are simply the latest duty the walls have drawn."]}],"name":"Old Montana Prison","aliases":[],"type":"PRISON_MUSEUM","type_label":"Prison Museum","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","HAUNTED_PLACE","HAUNTED_PRISON","MILITARY_MUSEUM","FORMER_PRISON","HAUNTED_LOCATION","HISTORIC_PRISON"],"groups":["dark-history","hauntings","institutions"],"desc":"Prison museum associated with paranormal tours.","full_desc":"A prison museum in Deer Lodge, Montana, built in 1871, Old Montana Prison is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Prison museum associated with paranormal tours. The archive files it under haunted locations, haunted prisons and former prisons. The dossier holds 3 reported claims, 2 legends and 4 documented facts, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Deer Lodge","county":null,"state":"Montana","postal":null,"region":"West","lat":46.3953,"lon":-112.7378,"coord_kind":"EXACT","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":1871,"year_opened":1871,"year_closed":1979,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Pass 1 source-grounded discovery; independent historical verification, coordinates and current access still pending. Confidence measures attribution quality, not paranormal reality.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"HIGH","score":77.5,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.8,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0.85,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":914,"type":"REPORTED_PRESENCE","description":"Visit Montana recounts reported paranormal activity discussed on Old Montana Prison ghost tours — cell-house voices, footsteps on the tiers, the standard repertoire amplified by the prison's documented riot history. The tours run the corridors where it happened; the reports follow the same route. The reports follow the riot route.","evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","evidence_label":"Documented legend","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.6,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Discover Montana’s haunted history this fall","url":"https://visitmt.com/press-room/press-releases/discover-montana-s-haunted-history-this-fall","publisher":"Visit Montana","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]},{"id":1095,"type":"REPORTED_ANOMALIES","description":"Staff and paranormal teams at Old Montana Prison report figures in the cell houses and sounds attributed to the 1959 riot — the takeover that killed Deputy Warden Rothe and ended with two ringleaders dead in Cell 20. The riot corridor is where the reports concentrate. The riot corridor carries them.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Old Montana Prison & Auto Museum — official","url":"https://pcmaf.org/","publisher":"Powell County Museum & Arts Foundation","type":"MUSEUM","authority":2},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]},{"id":1777,"type":"NAMED_GHOST_LEGEND","description":"Old Montana Prison lore ties its figures to the 1959 riot dead — the deputy warden killed in the takeover and the ringleaders found dead in Cell 20 as the National Guard retook the block. The cell is the ghost tour's climax: three violent deaths in one small room. Three deaths in one small room. The Guard ended it in Cell 20. The venue keeps the story itself.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Old Montana Prison","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Montana_Prison","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"The historic cell house and maximum-security cells are preserved. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. Media accounts document it — reported history rather than legend. Sources including 'Discover Montana’s haunted history this fall' carry the record. The record keeps it — history, not lore.","evidence":"MEDIA_REPORTED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Discover Montana’s haunted history this fall","url":"https://visitmt.com/press-room/press-releases/discover-montana-s-haunted-history-this-fall","publisher":"Visit Montana","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}},{"description":"The prison operated 1871–1979 and is preserved as part of the Powell County Museum complex. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. The record appears in 'Montana State Prison'. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1871","date_end":"1979","confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Montana State Prison","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana_State_Prison","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}},{"description":"The April 1959 riot led by Jerry Myles and Lee Smart killed a deputy warden; both leaders died by suicide as it collapsed. A documented history gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that spine. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. The record appears in 'Montana State Prison'. The record keeps it — history, not lore.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":"1959-04","confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Montana State Prison","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana_State_Prison","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}},{"description":"Opened 1871; the 1959 riot is documented; closed 1979. A documented history gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that spine. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. Sources including 'Old Montana Prison' carry the record. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1871","date_end":"1979","confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Old Montana Prison","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Montana_Prison","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Visit Montana recounts reported paranormal activity on Old Montana Prison's ghost tours — cell-house voices, footsteps on the tiers, the standard repertoire amplified by the prison's documented riot history. The 1959 riot dead anchor the lore; the tours run the corridors where it happened. The riot corridors carry most of the reports.","earliest":null,"evidence":"DOCUMENTED_LEGEND","source":{"name":"Discover Montana’s haunted history this fall","url":"https://visitmt.com/press-room/press-releases/discover-montana-s-haunted-history-this-fall","publisher":"Visit Montana","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}},{"name":null,"summary":"Old Montana Prison lore ties its figures to the 1959 riot dead — Deputy Warden Ted Rothe, killed in the takeover, and ringleaders Myles and Smart, who died in Cell 20 as the National Guard stormed the block. The cell is the ghost tour's climax: three violent deaths in one small room. The riot cells anchor the tour's final stop.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Old Montana Prison","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Montana_Prison","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[],"events":[{"name":"1959 prison riot","type":"RIOT","date_start":"1959-04-16","date_end":"1959-04-17","description":"On April 16, 1959, inmates Jerry Myles and Lee Smart led a riot at Montana State Prison, seizing the cell house and killing Deputy Warden Ted Rothe. The National Guard stormed the prison three days later; the ringleaders died in an apparent murder-suicide in Cell 20 — the same cell tours point out to this day as the prison's most haunted room.","evidence":"RIOT","source":{"name":"Montana State Prison","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana_State_Prison","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Site access varies; verify before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Discover Montana’s haunted history this fall","url":"https://visitmt.com/press-room/press-releases/discover-montana-s-haunted-history-this-fall","publisher":"Visit Montana","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},{"name":"Montana State Prison","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana_State_Prison","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},{"name":"Old Montana Prison & Auto Museum — official","url":"https://pcmaf.org/","publisher":"Powell County Museum & Arts Foundation","type":"MUSEUM","authority":2},{"name":"Old Montana Prison","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Montana_Prison","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"place_type","existing_value":"PRISON_MUSEUM","incoming_value":"FORMER_PRISON","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"Prison museum associated with paranormal tours.","incoming_value":"Territorial prison site of the deadly 1959 riot, now a museum complex.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Pass 1 source-grounded discovery; independent historical verification, coordinates and current access still pending. Confidence measures attribution quality, not paranormal reality.","incoming_value":"Historical enrichment pass from encyclopedia/official records; paranormal claims remain source-attributed reports, not verified events.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"place_type","existing_value":"PRISON_MUSEUM","incoming_value":"PRISON","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"Prison museum associated with paranormal tours.","incoming_value":"The 1871 territorial prison where the 1959 riot left dead and lore.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"full_description","existing_value":"The sandstone prison operated 1871–1979. In April 1959 inmates Jerry Myles and Lee Smart led a 36-hour riot that killed Deputy Warden Ted Rothe and ended with the leaders’ suicide pact—events the museum’s ghost tours still trace through the cell houses.","incoming_value":"The Old Montana Prison is Deer Lodge’s 1871 territorial prison, closed 1979 and preserved as a museum. Its lore includes the 1959 riot (two deaths, hostages), the gallows in the yard and the cells’ voices.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Pass 1 source-grounded discovery; independent historical verification, coordinates and current access still pending. Confidence measures attribution quality, not paranormal reality.","incoming_value":"Historic prison batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Montana State Prison","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana_State_Prison","desc":"United States historic place","extract":"The Montana State Prison is an American men's correctional facility of the Montana Department of Corrections in unincorporated Powell County, Montana, about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) west of Deer Lodge. The current facility was constructed between 1974 and 1979 in response to the continued degeneration of the original facility located in downtown Deer Lodge.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cb/OldMTPrisonT7CB1.jpg/330px-OldMTPrisonT7CB1.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":46.38277778,"lon":-112.80111111},"counts":{"claims":3,"history":4,"legends":2,"entities":0,"sources":4}}