old montana prison complex

We visited the Old Montana Prison Complex which is interesting, the Montana Car Museum, Frontier Montana Museum, Yesterday's Playthings with one fee covering all museums. We especially enjoyed the car museum as the number and quality of the vehicles was excellent. The Blacksmith was very interesting and authentic so we appreciated chatting with him and learning about this past trade. It was a great stop for us to look around and take a break from a long distance drive. We would recommend these museums to all groups of people.

The employees were great. The self tour was great. The 10.00 fee was worth it especially the car museum. They had a car that was donated there by someone from my hometown.

A must see, very friendly staff and the car Museum was done beautifully and loved touring the prison very interesting and a little spooky.

Visiting the old prison was SO interesting! It really seemed to tell a story as we walked through each area. The self-guided tour is great so you can move as quickly or slowly as you'd like or skip parts if you want. I wish we could have seen more as lots of areas are blocked off or "temporarily closed" although some of the signs saying "temporarily closed" seemed like they were quite old. I loved reading the stories about the riots and the infamous prisoners that were housed there. Overall, I highly recommend doing this!

we enjoyed the whole downtown/museum of deer lodge, MT it was a great way to spend the morning and we enjoyed the gift store and prisoner made gifts also. definetly recomend a visit.

More than just a prison, it also has one of the most comprehensive collections of well-restored antique cars. I like how they display the cars chronologically, so that visitors can discern subtle differences from year to year. The prison is also fascinating, explaining quite a bit of its history, from riots to notorious inmates. I thought our kids would be bored, but they said they truly enjoyed it. Of course, it could have been the hand-dipped ice cream shop next door.

The prison was fascinating and the self guided tour allows you to spend as much or as little time as you like.

Well worth stopping off in the small town of Deer Lodge just to see this attraction. It was very interesting to see how prison life was for the prisoners right up in to the 1970's. They also had quite a bit of information on the prison riot that took place here and what they had to do to put a stop to it. What I also found very interesting the some cells were open and most of the cabinets had writing by the prisoners themselves of when and why they were there doing time. It's a great place to wander around although some spots were a little creepy.

Drove from Seattle stopped in the entrance at 5:30pm sign said open to 6:00 pm. Old lady behind counter chatted with a local for five minutes before he left then told us "we're closing". Rude. Never said hi or acknowledged us while we waited patiently for them . No I'm sorry our last tour was at... just "we're closing" .

it was cool, awesome cars cool old prison things to look at and explore, touring this musemn is a cool place to visit

I have been here in years past. I love to visit Montana History. The information is interesting. I would like to have have been able to purchase a tour booklet but they don't have them for sale.

If you're into history, old buildings and spooky old prisons you're going to love this place! I'm a fan of all of these things so had a great time! Take your camera. Entrance fee is good for 2 days and also gets you into the impressive car museum (this was one of the best collections of classic and antique cars I've seen) and other attractions within a short walking distance.

If you just want a trip down memory lane on what prisons used to be like, take a tour. It is a reminder of what prison was like before the current trend of rehabilitation. The good part is that there is a old car museum attached to the prison admission that is wonder full.

We love history and had free time on our trip so on a whim we stopped. This is the first prison in Montana. Built in 1871 and used if you can believe until 1979! The self-guided tour and brochure was aided by interesting markers along the way. There is a LOT of history here folks from the first inmates to the first gallows (which they still have on display). Add to this tour and you get a tour of 300 classic cars, a toy museum which was featuring 6900 Raggedy Anne dolls and other collectables. Along with that display there were old toy cars,old train sets and antique dolls set in displays such as "ladies tea room" or "Nursery". There were other displays available but we ran out of time. We were going to spend an hour and spent three. We could have stayed longer but ran out of time. One ticket covered everything price AAA or seniors $9pp.

The self guided tour was great, as everything is marked and they give you a book to follow afterwards you can a free one in the gift shop.