DEER LODGE - Did you know that inmates in Montana once saw incredible performances on this stage at the Old Montana State Prison? Well, this building is slowly coming apart, but thanks to a generous grant, they are going to restore it so the public can see this amazing building and how it was built to reform the lives of inmates.
“At the time it was finished, it was one of the finest theaters west of the Mississippi,” President of the Powell County Museum and Arts Foundation John O’Donnell said.
This grand theater was built inside the walls of the old territorial prison in Deer Lodge in 1919 by William A. Clark Jr., the son of Butte’s famed Copper King. This was the brainchild of the prison’s warden at the time, Frank P. Conley.
WATCH: A 100-year-old prison theater is getting a second life. 🎭
“Frank believed that a man needed to rebuild his spirit in order to rebuild his life if he was in a penitentiary,” O’Donnell said.
An idealist for that time, the warden wanted to expose prisoners to orchestra music, plays, and the arts to help them reform.
“He believed, quite frankly, that the Auburn system, which was popular at the time, which is where you sat and ruminated in a closed cell, sometimes 23, 24 hours a day, he thought that was antithetical, and it would just break the man’s mind down,” O’Donnell said.
The inmates participated in the construction of the theater.
“They also made the bricks as well, so they literally started from scratch,” Prison Museum Curator Heather Gregory said.
The theater remained in use until 1975, when it was severely damaged by fire. For the past 20 years, the building has been deteriorating. A recent $200,000 Department of Commerce grant will help them stabilize the building and put a roof on it. Though it won’t likely operate as a theater again, it will eventually be safe to open to the public as an exhibit room.
The museum says it's important to the community to keep the historic site open.
“I have visitors come in here, and they tell me all the time, ‘by great-great-grandfather was here, and he did this, and he was part of that,’ so it’s really fascinating to see their ancestors, their relatives be part of Montana history,” Gregory said.
Restoration will start this summer.
