Deer Lodge, MT - The Prison

Sometimes small towns have a wealth of things to do and places to see. Deer Lodge is one of these. There must be a group of people in town who not only want to chronicle their history but also to increase tourism and bring more people through. Deer Lodge is a small town between larger towns and is suffering the same fate that small towns throughout America are suffering: people are leaving, stores are closing and the downtown looks like a ghost town. Winthrop, WA countered the drive-through nature of small towns with developing a Western theme and, boy, does that make people stop, visit the local stores and buy, buy, buy. Deer Lodge seems to have gone the museum way - they’ve built upon the National Monument and have about 4 museums in one block of town - and an ice cream store in the middle.

The Old Prison Museum is the most popular museum and here you can walk through a prison that was used from the late 1800’s up to the late 1900’s when the state built a new one several miles outside of town. Most of the prison is open for viewing, they’ve got good signage, they’ve developed some good displays, they have chronicled several prison escapes and, all in all, it is a good prison museum, if you like prison museums.

You can walk through the cell blocks which are 4 stories high.

You can see the cell of Paul’Turkey Pete’ Eitner who lived almost his entire life imprisoned. In his old cell are 2

pictures of him at different ages.

He was put in charge of the prison turkeys which were used for food. Slowly but surely reality slipped away from his and one day, he actually sold the prison turkeys for 25 cents each. That marked the end of his farming days but now he saw his fantasy as an entrepreneur an philanthropist. The prison administration humored him and allowed him to have printed checks from the prison print shop.

He bought and sold regularly. He ‘purchased’ the prison and began to ‘operate’ it. He ‘paid’ the guards and ‘paid’ for prison expenses. Eitner Enterprises saved Brazil’s coffee crop, invested in pink flamingos, purchases alfalfa seed from Poncho Villa and sold ships to the Navy. He was very busy. When he died at 89, he had a funeral in the prison (the only funeral held in the prison) and his old cell was converted into a barber shop.

You can walk through the underground tunnels which guards used to get around quickly. You can see the cafeteria where everyone faced the same way like in a lecture in college. You can see the solitary cells with no windows, no light coming through the doors and no furniture for comfort. It’s all pretty open and you can wander around where you wish.

They have a display of contraband which the prisoners made.

Here is a pair of shoes with 20 lbs. of lead in the soles for prisoners who were thought to be a flight risk.

Interesting but depressing and dreary.

We had had enough with museums for the day but were intrigued with the Sears and Roebuck carriage house kit which someone had put together near the other museums.

Deer Lodge is filled with smoke haze these days from fires in British Columbia and Washington. Several days ago, we could see these mountains clearly. Today they are hazy.

We also saw the Craig Hot Shots heading off to fight a fire in Montana. They were in 3 fire trucks and they were buying cases of water in the local store. We thanked them for their work and wished them the best.