Former guards reflect as 174-year-old Chatham-Kent prison prepares for transformation

Chatham-Kent Prison was built in 1850 and is soon to be converted into an apartment complex. Its former guards have stories to tell and are offering tours ahead of the renovation.

Dave Arnold worked there as a correctional officer from 1990 until 2014, when the prison was closed.

He remembers the last somewhat successful escape from the facility in the late 1990s.

He says the inmate managed to escape the facility by digging a hole in the plaster ceiling and crawling inside.

“He leaked a roof vent [and] climbed down a drainpipe,” Arnold said.

He says the prison was alerted to the outbreak by a neighbor who saw what happened.

However, the prisoner managed to escape the guards and steal a car.

“He just happened to be looking around and there was a case of beer in the vehicle.”

Arnold says the fugitive eventually overturned his vehicle on Highway 401 while attempting to escape.

“An OPP patrol officer came to investigate and saw that the man was still wearing orange. And that was it, two and two together and bingo: he was arrested again,” Arnold said.

Watch Arnold tell the story of his last escape from Chatham-Kent Prison:

Arnold, along with two other former guards, will be taking tours of the prison and an adjacent courthouse until September – before they are demolished and converted into an apartment complex.

The developers will not make any changes to the exterior façade of the buildings as they are designated as cultural monuments.

However, according to the developers, the interior plans are still in the development phase, so details about the layout or the number of planned residential units have not yet been determined.

Councillor Alysson Storey says the housing to be built on the site is urgently needed.

“The opportunity [housing] in such a really interesting and historic building I find really exciting,” she says.

Easter riot

Loris Arthurton, another former guard, remembers the outbreak of a riot in the prison on Easter Sunday 2000.

“When I came in, all I heard was this crazy roar and the smoke, this smell of smoke,” Arthurton said.

Back then, he says, inmates were allowed to carry matches to light cigarettes.

Chaos broke out in one cell block when inmates started fires in their cells – he believes they got carried away because a new inmate had smuggled drugs in.

“They were high and throwing out the flammable material. The smoke detectors were setting off fire alarms every two or three minutes,” he says.

He says that when inmates in another part of the prison heard what was happening, they decided to join in.

“So there were 30 or 40 people kicking the wall, screaming, hooting and shouting and so on. But I could see that
The wall actually moved when they kicked it and I prayed that the rivets wouldn't break because if they did they would come loose and be unfastened.”

“It was just a madhouse.”