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.

[7] The burgeoning population was quelled somewhat when, in June 1874, another tier of fourteen cells was constructed, and the civilians of Deer Lodge were calmed when a twelve foot board fence went up in 1875.

[8] The prison's population continued to grow, so Congress allocated an additional $15,000 for the construction of another tier of cells, but the soft brick of the building could not support any more weight.

To alleviate the discomfort, the administration used wood stoves to heat the building and oil lamps to light it, the smoke from which combined with the stench of bucketed human waste and unwashed bodies to make the environment rank.

Born on 28 February 1864 in Havre de Grace, Maryland,[16] Frank Conley set off for the American West at the age of sixteen and landed in Montana, working to create what would later become Yellowstone National Park.

Possibly the most important, or at least longest lasting, contribution Warden Conley made to the Montana State Prison are the plethora of buildings he left in his wake.

[49] Unfortunately, due to Conley's aggressive control of the facility, most of the administration of the prison rested in the hands of the warden, including the hiring and firing of guards, requests for new building permits from the state, and most of the parole functions of the institution.

Since work meant not only something to do other than sit in a cell but also time earned off a sentence, this system led to rampant corruption, favoritism, and ill-feelings among the prisoners, since the con-bosses often sold positions or used them as leverage for any number of illicit favors.

[59] During a tour of the prison by the Montana Council on Corrections, the inmates instigated a twenty-four-hour sit-down strike in which they refused to report to work, ignored orders from guards, and loitered about the cell house corridors.

[66] They also sought to crack down on the rampant drug use and black market inside the walls[67] and began performing exhaustive background checks on the prisoners,[68] a practice that was not standard operating procedure until Powell's tenure.

Described as having an "emotionally unstable, psychopathic personality"[71] by psychiatrist Romney Ritchey at Alcatraz, Jerry Myles nonetheless had a genius intellect, scoring 125 and 147 on intelligence tests in Atlanta[72] and Montana,[73] respectively.

[76] 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 riot.

[82] He used the position to his advantage, decorating his apartment-like cell in the garment shop with niceties and manipulating young inmates into providing him with sexual favors for work in the factory.

When Warden Powell abolished the con-boss system in October 1958, Myles was stripped of his favor in the prison community and started acting out, which earned him time in segregation.

[83] Walter Jones, the prison's newly graduated sociologist,[84] recognized the danger Myles represented and suggested further segregation in Siberia in the base of the northern towers of Cellblock 1.

[86] On 27 February 1959, Rothe released Myles back into the general population and assigned him to the water crew—the group of inmates who emptied toilet buckets from Cellblock 2 and the guard towers.

[91] Since the prison had no system of segregating inmates based on age, crime, or sexual proclivities, Smart was housed in general population where his youthful frame became an instant target for older, predatory cons.

His crime of murder and connection with the band gang lent him a modicum of notoriety, but he still felt obliged to hire George Alton, a known troublemaker, for protection at the cost of ten dollars a month.

[92] A diminutive, wiry Montanan, Alton was well respected by guards and inmates alike, known for his vicious left hook and his prowess in the prizefighting ring, held weekly in the WA Clark Theatre.

They quickly moved over to Cellblock 2, where they knew the ammunition was stored, and were in possession of that building within minutes, even after a tense standoff between a guard holding a loaded rifle and an inmate with a knife.

[114] Myles and Smart became anxious and left, leaving Powell in the care of Walter Trotchie, who had orders to kill the warden with a kitchen knife at 8:00 if the governor didn't call.

The hostages were eventually crowded into three cells, and the frightened men planned to press the thin prison mattresses against the bars to ward off any attack, but they knew the shield would not hold long against fire or at all against the rifles.

During their ascent, Jerry Myles managed to shoot Lieutenant Francis "Russ" Pulliam in the arm, who was removed and remanded to the hospital at Fort Harrison in Helena.

The prisoners were subjected to cavity searches,[141] and many, including George Alton, had the dead bodies of Myles and Smart paraded in front of them before the cadavers were surrendered to the coroner.

[143] Warden Powell decided that severe segregation for the remaining instigators of the riot was in order, so he moved the women prisoners out of their building and into housing across the street.

[147] In the twenty years between 1959 and when the facility was shut down in 1979, the Old Montana Prison struggled with the same problems which had plagued the institution for the entirety of its history: overcrowding, underfunding, and substandard conditions.

[148] The arsonist was never discovered, but the remaining cellblock was searched and the presence of contraband, including weapons, inspired Warden Crist to sentence a dozen inmates to the maximum security building, which had been closed for three years.

[27] Almost ten years after Warden Floyd Powell resigned, Governor Forrest Anderson, who had been instrumental in the negotiations which led to the end of the pea riot in 1957, managed to get the state legislature to approve $3.8 million to be used in the construction of a new facility,[149] but the funds did not become available until 1973.

The 1975 film Rancho Deluxe directed by Frank Perry and starring Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston, Elizabeth Ashley & Harry Dean Stanton.