Mount McGregor Correctional Facility was a medium security prison for male inmates in the Town of Moreau, Saratoga County, New York, United States. It was served by the Wilton, New York post office and included 100 structures on over 1,000 acres. Before updating security, it was called "Camp Walkaway" due to the number of breakouts. [1] It became a prison in 1976 and closed on July 26, 2014. [2]
The peak, Mount McGregor, was originally called "Palmertown Mountain", named after a local native tribe. It was renamed after Duncan McGregor, who purchased the land in a tax sale and constructed a small resort along with a restaurant for summer visitors. The Saratoga, Mount McGregor and Lake George Railroad later bought the property and opened a more sumptuous resort at the end of a rail line. When the Hotel Balmoral burned in 1897, the resort faded in popularity.
The "Sanatorium on the Mountain" at Mount McGregor was opened in 1913 by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company for the benefit of its employees suffering from tuberculosis. This sanatorium, fully staffed by doctors and a nursing staff, had a goal of restoring the health of all the company's employees. A labyrinth of underground passages still exist that were used to transport the bodies of patients who died to the church and crematorium. The sanitorium closed in 1945.
After World War II, the sanatorium served as a facility for military veterans returning to civilian life. Local stories suggest Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner looked into purchasing the property in the 1960s or early 1970s.
In 1960 the facility was taken over by the State of New York as a school for the developmentally disabled. At first the school was the Mount McGregor division of Rome State School and then became Wilton State School.
The New York State Department of Corrections assumed control in 1976. At first the complex was a minimum-security prison, later adding medium-security facilities. It consisted of 100 structures on over 1,000 acres, including dormitories, a 1915 Mission-style chapel with a pipe organ, a dining hall with large windows, newly built gymnasium and medical building, and a lake. Administrative services such as Reception or Commissary, were located on the lower level, in the tunnels connecting the buildings. The buildings covered 550,000 square feet and ranged in age from 1913 to 2007. The prison, which used only the central cluster of buildings, closed in 2014. [3]
Neighboring Moreau Lake State Park will incorporate 750 undeveloped acres of the former facility. In 2015, the state began considering proposals for the sale of an additional 325 acres, including all the buildings, for redevelopment. [3]
As of 2017, the prison has not been sold and the site is still closed to the public.
In 2022, Steve Brodt, founder of Haunted Nights, filed a proposal with the state's economic development arm to reimagine Mount McGregor. [4] He and his business partner, Mark Erskine, a real estate investor who lives outside Chicago, were reported to be preparing to submit a purchase offer to the state.
Brodt, of Glens Falls, wants to use the prison to host events similar to the tours that Haunted Nights conducts across the country: in a former county jail in Salem, an old asylum near Pittsburgh and a former mineral springs hotel on the Mississippi River.
Grant Cottage State Historic Site, where former U.S. president and army general Ulysses S. Grant spent the last six weeks of his life, was within the grounds of the correctional facility and visitors had to pass a checkpoint. Grant spent the last weeks of his life there, finishing his memoirs, the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant , just a few days before he died. The historic site is not part of the area to be sold. Prison inmates were prevented by a fence from entering the grounds of the cottage.
Moreau is a town in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 13,826 at the 2000 census. The town is located in the northeast part of the county, north of Saratoga Springs. Moreau is named after Jean Victor Moreau, a French general, who visited the area just before the town was formed. The town contains a village called South Glens Falls.
Wilton is a town in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 17,361 at the 2020 census.
Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York. It is about 30 miles (48 km) north of New York City on the east bank of the Hudson River. It holds about 1,700 inmates and housed the execution chamber for the State of New York until the abolition of capital punishment in New York in 2004.
Sullivan Correctional Facility is a New York State maximum security prison correctional facility for male prisoners located in Fallsburg, New York. It is operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services.
Taconic Correctional Facility is a medium/minimum security women's prison in Bedford, New York operated by the New York State DOCCS. Although the prison has a maximum 387-person capacity, the incarcerated population was under 170 as of November, 2021.
Moreau Lake State Park is a 6,250-acre (2,530 ha) state park in Saratoga County, New York, United States.
Downstate Correctional Facility was a maximum-security prison in the Town of Fishkill in the Hudson Valley region of New York.
Collins Correctional Facility is a medium security prison in Collins, New York in the United States. The prison is located in the south part of Erie County in the Town of Collins. It is adjacent to the now-closed Gowanda Correctional Facility, another medium-security prison. Both prisons are located north of the Village of Gowanda, at the southern end of Erie County.
Arthur Kill Correctional Facility was a medium security correctional facility on Arthur Kill Road in Charleston, Staten Island, New York City. It operated from 1976 to 2011, run by what was then the New York State Department of Correctional Services. The prison had a capacity of 931 male inmates.
The Saratoga, Mount McGregor and Lake George Railroad was a railroad leading from North Broadway in Saratoga Springs, New York, USA, controlled by the financier Joseph William Drexel. The railroad ran for approximately 12 miles (19 km) through the towns of Saratoga Springs, Wilton, Moreau and Corinth to the top of Mount McGregor.
Coxsackie Correctional Facility is a maximum security state prison in Coxsackie, Greene County, New York. It currently houses approximately 900 inmates. It is classified as a maximum security general confinement facility and detention center for men.
Fishkill Correctional Facility is a multi-security level prison in New York, United States. The prison is located in both the Town of Fishkill and the City of Beacon in Dutchess County. Fishkill was constructed in 1896. It began as the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (NYSDOCCS) is the department of the New York State government that maintains the state prisons and parole system. The New York State prison system encompasses 44 prisons funded by the state government. This does not include other jails and prisons in New York State such as federal prisons, New York City jails, or county jails.
The Adirondack Correctional Facility is a medium-security prison in Ray Brook, New York in the Adirondack Mountains between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid; it detains up to 566 people.
Camp Gabriels was a minimum security state prison, located in northern New York. This prison was located in the village of Gabriels in the Town of Brighton in Franklin County. The location of the former prison is inside the Adirondack Park on 'Forever Wild' Forest Preserve land. New York State Forest Preserve land is protected by Section 1 of Article 14 of the New York State Constitution. Camp Gabriels does not meet any of the exceptions to those provisions.
Grant Cottage State Historic Site is an Adirondack mountain cottage on the slope of Mount McGregor in the town of Moreau, New York. Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States, died of throat cancer at the cottage on July 23, 1885. The house was maintained as a shrine to U.S. Grant following his death by the Mount McGregor Memorial Association and a series of live-in caretakers. The building became a New York State Historic Site in 1957 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. The Historic Site was designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service in 2021.
The Gowanda Correctional Facility was a medium-security prison for men located in Gowanda, New York, United States. The prison was located in the south part of Erie County in the Town of Collins. It was adjacent to the Collins Correctional Facility, another medium-security prison. Both prisons were located north of Village of Gowanda at the southern end of Erie County. It opened in 1994 and closed in 2021.
Mount McGregor or variation, may refer to:
Mount McGregor is a mountain in Saratoga County, New York in the towns of Wilton, Moreau, and Corinth. It is one of the principal peaks of the Palmertown Range.
The Palmertown range is the most easterly of the five great mountain-chains which traverse the great wilderness. The Palmertown range begins on Lake Champlain, near Ticonderoga, and running down on both sides of Lake George, crosses the Hudson above Glen's Falls, and running through the town of Wilton, ends in the high ground of North Broadway, in Saratoga Springs.
The Detroit House of Correction (DeHoCo), opened in 1861, was owned and run by the City of Detroit but originally accepted prisoners from throughout the state including women. This was the first State operated prison for female felons. The state renovated the woman's division into the new Phoenix facility. The Detroit House of Correction was transferred to the state in 1986, renamed to Western Wayne Correctional Facility, and became a women's facility for the rest of its tenure. It closed in December 2004 and all inmates and staff were transferred to the Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti.
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Above facilities are male-only unless noted by ♀(female) or ♂♀ (unisex) | |
