Former guards reflect as 174-year-old Chatham-Kent jail prepares for transformation
The Chatham-Kent Jail was built in 1850 and will soon be turned into an apartment complex — its former guards have stories to tell and they are giving tours before the conversion takes place.
Dave Arnold worked at the jail as a corrections officer from 1990 to 2014, when the jail was shut down.
He recalls when the last semi-successful escape from the facility happened in the late 1990s.
He says the inmate managed to get out of the facility by digging a hole through the plaster ceiling and crawling in.
"He kicked out a roof vent [and] shimmied down a drain pipe," Arnold said.
He says the jail was alerted to the escape by a neighbour who saw what was happening.
But the inmate did manage to evade the guards and stole a car.
"He just happened to look around and there was a case of beer in the vehicle with him."
Arnold says the escapee eventually rolled the vehicle on the 401 while trying to make his getaway.
"An OPP cruiser came to investigate it and saw the man was still wearing orange and put two and two together and bingo, he's rearrested," Arnold said.
Watch Arnold tell the story of what he says is Chatham-Kent Jail's last escape:
Arnold is joining two other former guards giving tours of the jail and an adjoining courthouse until September — before they are gutted and turned into an apartment complex.
The developers of the buildings are not changing the exteriors as they are designated as a heritage site.
But, according to the developers, the interior plans are still underway, so details about the layout or the number of units that they are planning to build are not yet set.
Alysson Storey, who is a councillor for the municipality, says the housing that the site will be providing is sorely needed.
Chatham-Kent jail former jail guards (L-R) Bob Pickard, Phil Gavin, Loris Arthurton and Dave Arnold (Chris Ensing/CBC)
"The chance to provide [housing] in such a really interesting and historic structure, I think is really exciting," she says.
Loris Arthurton, former corrections officer at the Chatham-Kent jail in the cells where he said the riot broke. (Chris Ensing/CBC)
Easter riot
Loris Arthurton, another former guard, remembers when a riot broke out at the jail on Easter Sunday in 2000.
"When I came in, I heard just this roar of crazy noise and smoke, that smell of smoke," Arthurton said.
Chatham-Kent local Councillor Alysson Storey, who happens to be the granddaughter of the architect Joe Storey who designed the Courthouse building adjacent to the old Courthouse and Jail in Chatham (Chris Ensing/CBC)
At the time, he says, the inmates were allowed to carry matches to light cigarettes.
Mayhem broke out in one cell block where inmates were lighting fires in their cells — he believes they were getting carried away because of drugs that had been smuggled in by a new inmate.
"They were high throwing the the flammable materials out. The smoke detectors were setting them fire bells off every two or three minutes," he says.
He says inmates in another section of the jail decided to join in when they heard what was happening.
"So it was like 30 or 40 people all kicking the wall, screaming, hooting and hollering, carrying on. But I could see that
wall actually moving as they were kicking it, and I was praying that the rivets weren't gonna crack because then they would get out and they'd be loose."
"It was just bedlam."
