Photos courtesy of Denver Public Library – Western History Museum
1859 – Town of Cañon City established
1868 – First prison in Colorado Territory built
1871 – Territorial facility opened
1876 – Colorado becomes a state; Territorial renamed Colorado State Penitentiary (CSP)
1884 – Original walls of Colorado State Penitentiary completed with convict labor
1886 – Alfred Packer convicted of cannibalism
1893 – Youngest inmate, 11 year old Anton Wood, sentenced for murder
1924 – Congressional authorization of National Bureau of Prisons
1925 – Federal Probation Act
1929 – Deadliest prison riot of Colorado State Penitentiary; 8 officers killed
1930 – Federal Bureau of Prisons established
1932 – Roy Best served as warden
1933 – Method of executions changed from hanging to gas chambers
1935 – Separate women’s facility built outside east wall of Territorial prison
1947 – Prison Riot
1948 – Movie Cañon City comes out about 1947 riot
1952 – Best indicted and suspended for 2 years
1954 – American Prison Association becomes American Correctional Association
1956 – Colorado’s 2nd prison, Skyline was built
1959 – Medium Security (MS) built (later renamed Fremont Correctional Facility)
1965 – Wayne K. Patterson appointed as warden
1967 – Luis Monge was last person to be executed in the gas chamber
1968 – New women’s facility built
1971 – War on Drugs begins
1974 – Richard Nixon resigns
1980 – Shadow Mountain built
1980 – Centennial Correctional Facility built
1988 – Museum of Colorado Prisons opened
1991 – Fremont Correctional Facility and Shadow Mountain merged
2013 – Tom Clements, Executive Director of Colorado Prisons, killed
