It was a gray, cold blustery day. It seemed an apropos time to visit the Old Montana Prison with its gray stone walls and ‘gloomy feeling’.
For the most part we were alone as we walked through the yards and cell blocks, surrounded by massive stone walls. The only sound was the wind and the monotonous clank of a chain against the flagpole.
We wandered inside the main ‘cell block’. If there is such a thing as ‘bad vibes’, this barren place has them.
Cell one was Turkey Pete’s cell. In 1918, at age 40 he was sentenced to life in prison for murder. As a model prisoner, he was assigned to tend the prison turkeys. But as the years passed reality slipped away from him…. and he slowly went insane. He died at age 89.
This is the exercise yard for difficult prisoners.. They could spend the whole day out in the ‘yard’…but with absolutely nothing to do.
To gaze up at those walls and know “life” was just outside and forever denied to you…that would make me slip away from reality. I was glad we went…if only to experience the sweet Freedom as we stepped outside those gates!