Nipissing District North Bay Jail

Nipissing District North Bay Jail. . , The first known lockup in North Bay was a rudimentary log structure built in 1886 at the corner of Main and Wyld Streets. Two years later the province constructed a court house and lockup on Bye, now Plouffe, Street which evolved into a detention centre for the vast judicial district of Nipissing eventually housing 30 cells. The first Town Hall at Ferguson and Worthington had some holding cells as well as housing town administration, fire and police departments. , As the community grew the need for a dedicated jail building became evident and in September 1929 construction began on this Trout Lake Road site, at the time an undeveloped area on the outskirts of the city. Robert Wallace and Sons General Contractors handled the job and the Nipissing District Jail accepted its first inmates in mid November, 1930. The building was labelled "fire and escape proof" with "outer walls... 26 inches thick... composed of brick, concrete and reinforced steel." The "security and health of inmates... and administration took precedence over architectural beauty." The maximum security structure was built with 69 cells; in 1990 double bunking was introduced which brought capacity to 123 inmates, both male and female, awaiting trial, sentencing, transfer to other institutions, immigration or deportation hearings or serving sentences of 2 years less a day, or shorter. The Governor or Superintendent of the jail lived on the 2nd floor for some two decades until a family residence was built on the property; jail administration took over that building in 1994., Five men were executed in North Bay between 1909 and 1954 but the only hanging in the Trout Lake Road jail itself was that of 29 year old Mervyn James Hutson in February of 1954. His body was unclaimed and was buried on jail grounds. The death penalty was abolished in Canada in 1976 but the gallows which claimed Hutson can still be found in the jail. , Far from being "escape proof", the jail saw a number of "walkaways" into the bush that surrounded the structure and in 1942 an inmate absconded by going out through the coal chute and into the woods. A fenced-in exercise yard was constructed to help prevent such incidents. The most publicized escape from the North Bay jail was that of the infamous Donald Kelly. In early August, 1975, during a preliminary hearing on charges related to the 1969 murders of Carol and Jack MacWilliams, inmate Kelly overpowered a guard in the visitors' room and escaped out a back door through which groceries were being delivered. After stealing a rifle and ammunition from a truck in the parking lot, he ran to Trout Lake Road, hijacked a vehicle and for a month eluded one of the largest manhunts in Ontario's history, acquiring a perverse fame in the process. While on the run, he stole vehicles, hid in cottages, and took multiple hostages, before being tracked to a cabin in Skead, northeast of Sudbury, by OPP Constable Ray Carson, and his police dog Cloud II. On September 2nd, after a brief shootout, Constables Carson and Ted Gianaini apprehended the wounded fugitive but not before Kelly shot and killed Cloud. Former North Bay Police Chief George Berrigan recalled that the killing of the dog seemed to cause more public outrage than all of Kelly's other crimes. Eventually convicted of two counts of murder, Donald Kelly died in a British Columbia prison in 2009. Cloud II was initially buried at the North Bay OPP detachment but his remains were re-interred in 2011 at the OPP's Orillia headquarters. , By the 21st century the Ontario government operated jails as well as larger regional detention centres. North Bay was one of nine jails and the third largest behind only Sudbury and Thunder Bay. It has played a key and evolving role in the justice system in North Bay and Northeastern Ontario. From an initial focus on punishment it increasingly incorporated educational, life skills and addiction programmes as well as social work generally into its mandate. , Ref - Prisco; Gunning "Start Point" / "Lean Years"; Berrigan "Police Stories"; McClenaghan/LeBelle "Beat Light"; Nugget Files 1930; NB Jail files., [photo captions] , . North Bay Jail, circa 1996. , . Main Entrance – early years. , . Cloud II and OPP Constable Ray Carson, circa 1975. , . Tony Celentano, staffer for 34 years, Superintendent 1953-1980, circa 1976. , . Front and side views, circa 1930’s. , . North Bay Police vehicle and passenger van at jail entrance, circa 1940.