Montana's old Territorial Prison now a museum - gave new meaning to the term "tourist trap" earlier this week when it accidentally locked up George and Marjorie Call of Kearns.
They were jailed for three hours - but it could have been into the night if Call had not engineered a rescue rivaling an old Wild West breakout.Mrs. Call told the Deseret News that she and her husband decided to take a self-guided tour Thursday around the fortress-like prison in Deer Lodge, Mont. The stop helped break up their trip back to Utah after visiting a daughter in Hamilton, Mont.
"It is a big place with a wall all around it. We were taking the self-guided tour, and spent a lot of time walking through a big, four-story building there and looking at the cells inside. When we tried to leave, we found out we were locked in," she said.
The Calls were unaware that the museum closed at 5:30 p.m. "We had been really quiet, so no one knew we were inside," she said.
The museum's manager, Andy Towe, told the Associated Press, "I don't know how they got missed, but they did."
Calls from the Calls were unable to attract any attention outside. Call found an electric switchbox and turned on all the prison lights, but that didn't attract any attention either.
"It was awfully cold. They had some cells with beds made up. I went and grabbed a blanket to keep warm. I didn't want to go in the cells because I thought more doors would close and lock," Mrs. Call said.
Her husband finally climbed to the third floor of the cellhouse and scaled a 4-foot-high barrier to reach the perimeter catwalk inside the building. He found an old white towel, attached it to a wire and waved it from a window overlooking Deer Lodge's Main Street. After about an hour, someone noticed it.
Employees across the street at a restaurant said they watched the towel waving for about 20 minutes, but at first thought it was a prank. Then they decided to take a closer look, found the Calls were trapped and called police.
"I'm glad we didn't have to spend all night in there. It was really getting cold," Mrs. Call said, "They were very apologetic for locking us in."
The Calls were treated to a free meal at the restaurant whose employees had discovered them, and were given a free stay at a local campground. The next day, the Calls came back to look at an automobile museum next to the prison.
Will the Calls ever go back to Deer Lodge after their ordeal? "I guess so. It wasn't that harrowing," Mrs. Call said. "It was just cold."