ALBUQUERQUE – New Mexico state officials are hoping to make a tourist attraction out of an unusual place: a prison where one of the nation’s deadliest riots took place in 1980.
In February 1980, inmates at New Mexico’s “Old Main” prison killed 33 fellow prisoners in a violent clash that included beheadings, amputations and burned bodies. More than 100 other inmates and guards were hurt in the 36-hour riot fueled by overcrowded conditions.
The now-closed Old Main prison near Santa Fe would become a permanent museum, under the proposed plan.
Officials say the plan, which would not seek state taxpayer money and is still in its early stages, would transform the empty building into a tourist attraction funded by visitors’ fees. Crews from the Penitentiary of New Mexico would help with repairs, and the museum could open within three to five years, officials say, although the final cost is not unclear.
State Corrections Secretary Gregg Marcantel told The Associated Press on Monday that strong public interest in tours of the site offered during last year’s New Mexico centennial celebration sparked the idea.
“I was amazed at the response,” Marcantel said. “We decided to give one tour a month for a year. The tours all booked up within three days.”
A second tour a month was offered and those all booked within a week, Marcantel said.
“That told me that we were sitting on something that could help us remember our history, but we also had an opportunity to do something for our current inmates,” he said.
Inmates from the Penitentiary of New Mexico, next to Old Main, would be involved in operating the museum.
The museum would include tours, a prisoner-run restaurant and an inmate-staffed hobby shop. Marcantel said inmates would learn various skills, such as developing business plans to run the restaurant.
Corrections Department spokeswoman Alex Tomlin said the officials don’t believe the project would require any special legislation, unless the department seeks a special designation.
Old Main was closed in 1988, eight years after the riot, which led to massive reforms within New Mexico’s prison system.
The planned museum follows a trend in “dark tourism” to transform tragic and disaster sites into tourist attractions. For example, New York City officials had to wrestle with the influx of visitors to the World Trade Center immediately after Sept. 11 and planners for the memorial site factored in increased tourist traffic.
In addition, more than 1 million people visit Auschwitz annually while some sites from the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia have been turned into tourist destinations to mark the genocide in that country’s history.
Retired Corrections Department Capt. Marcella Armijo, 61, who was among the first to see the brutal aftermath of the riot, said any museum needs to be truthful about events there. “I hope they get someone in there (who) knows firsthand what they are talking about,” she said. “If not, I’ll be angry.”
Mark Donatelli, a Santa Fe lawyer who represented inmates linked to the riot, agreed the museum could be a good idea if planned correctly. “It shouldn’t be a place for a Halloween party (nor) ghoulish amusement park,” he said. “It’s a place of history that should be kept alive.”
