Montana Territorial
Prison Riot of 1959
Forty years of degeneration, mismanagement and the incarceration of
a career criminal all lead to an explosive riot.
Created in 1871 as a Territorial Prison when Montana achieved statehood in 1889 it became the primary penal institution in
the state until 1979. Throughout the prison's history, the institution was plagued with constant overcrowding, insufficient funds,
and antiquated facilities. The administration of Warden Frank Conley from 1890 to 1921 proved the exception to this rule, as Warden Conley instituted extensive inmate labor projects that kept many inmates at work constructing the prison buildings and walls
as well as providing various state and community services like road building, logging, and ranching.
After Conley left office, the prison experienced almost forty years of degeneration, mismanagement, and monetary restraints
until an explosive riot in 1959 captured the attention of the nation. Led by Jerry Myles and Lee Smart, the riot maintained the
prison under inmate control for thirty-six hours before the Montana National Guard stormed the institution to restore order. The
facility was retired in September 1979, and the inmates were moved to the current prison. The Old Prison was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and is now a museum.
1959 was a turbulent year in Montana State Prison history. Following Warden Burrell's resignation in February 1958, the
Montana Council on Corrections decided that, in order to modernize the facility, the next warden of the prison would be selected
from a nationwide search, putting an end to the tradition of gubernatorial appointees. Floyd Powell, of Wisconsin, was chosen
from the candidates who applied, and he took control of the prison in August 1958.
Floyd Powell came to Montana in response to the nationwide search for a warden who would update the Montana State Prison
into a modern facility. With more than eighteen years of penal experience at the Wisconsin State Prison Powell arrived in Deer
Lodge knowing the only way to truly modernize the prison rested in building a whole new facility. The territorial prison was far
too antiquated to be worth revitalizing. Within weeks of taking charge of the prison, Powell summoned his friend and subordinate,
Ted Rothe, from Wisconsin to be his deputy warden.
Between the two of them, Powell and Rothe began a series of reforms which were targeted at updating the facility. They began
to abolish the "con-boss" system, improved inmate food quality by instilling a "Take all you want, but eat all you take" policy and
by supplying condiments on the tables. They also sought to crack down on the rampant drug use and black market inside the walls
and began performing exhaustive background checks on the prisoners, a practice that was not standard operating procedure until
Powell's tenure. A training regimen for the guards was also instilled to bettered communication between shifts and cut back on
guard contributions to the black market. Something they were unable to initiate until too late was the removal of firearms from the
cellblocks; Powell and Rothe wanted to completely sweep both cellblocks of the rifles the guards carried on the catwalks. They
saw the Winchester rifles presence as an instigator for inmate uprising, but the guards refused to surrender the guns.
Though the pair from Wisconsin were doing their best to better the conditions in the prison, they felt heavy resistance from
both inmates and guards who had flourished under the previously lax security, as well as from the population of Montana who
viewed any improvement in the quality of life of an inmate nothing more than coddling convicts.
The primary leader of the riot, Jerry Myles born under the name Donald Groat. His mother was an unmarried transient who
quickly put her son up for adoption. By the time he was sixteen, he was in reform school, and for the rest of his life he would
spend more time inside correctional facilities then outside them. Described as having an "emotionally unstable, psychopathic personality" by psychiatrist Romney Ritchey at Alcatraz, Jerry Myles nonetheless had a genius intellect, scoring 125 and 147 on intelligence tests. Using suicide attempts, petty disturbances, and sexual deviancy, he strove to become the center of attention. He was
an institutionalized career prisoner, often committing small acts of burglary to get sentenced to more prison time whenever he
found himself free, and, once incarcerated, struggled to be noticed.
On 4 December 1944, he had organized a mutiny at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia on the grounds of poor medical care, no church services, and having to wait in line in the mess hall. After the mutiny, the administration at USP Atlanta declared Jerry Myles to be incorrigible and a danger to the security of their prison. They determined that their facilities were insufficient to fully monitor Myles' activities, so on 8 May 1945 they transferred him to the federal penitentiary at Alcatraz.
Jerry Myles would spend approximately seven years at Alcatraz between 1945 and 1952, after which he was transferred to
Leavenworth. While Jerry was at The Rock, the legendary "Battle of Alcatraz" occurred on 2 May 1946, and Myles, while he did
not take part in the escape attempt, learned much from the methods of Bernard Coy, who initiated the
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