BILLINGS — The old city jail is coming apart, bit by bit.
“It was penned ‘The Billings Police Historical Center,'" said Joel Watson, a retired detective and evidence technician. "It’s kind of just been that, but everyone just calls it ‘The Museum.’”
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With much of the building scheduled to be dismantled, Watson and a small crew are carefully removing what they can and transferring it to the Western Heritage Center — photos, artifacts, memories.
“A few of us were thinking about some old photos that the police department had," said Watson. "So, we started preserving the photos, and hanging ’em around, and then it just snowballed into more stuff.”
That “more stuff” includes murals painted directly onto the jail’s interior walls.
“On both walls, there’s a drawing or a painting that was done by Vine Broken Rope of an inebriated elephant," said Watson.
Entire sets of bars—effectively, the structure’s bones—will be extracted intact.
For Watson, these are not just pieces of metal and paint. These walls, he said, still have something to say.
“(I am) trying to think, too—who was the last person to walk out of here?" said Watson. "How quiet was it? What did the officers think?”
Watson is not just trying to preserve artifacts. For him, this is a kind of justice.
“I mean, yeah, we have pictures and video and other things, but that doesn’t always do it justice than having something that someone can touch and feel for themselves," said Watson. "Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”
