Everett “Guff” Felix and his wife Amy Lee shown in the Bitterroot Valley in Western Montana where they lived after the 1959 riot. Guff was a captain and taken hostage. He never went back to Montana State Prison. (Photo by Kevin Giles)

By Kevin S. Giles

Recently I discovered that Amy Lee Felix had died. In reading her obituary I remembered, in some detail, visiting her home in the mid-1990s in the Bitterroot Valley in Montana. I was there to interview Amy’s husband, Everett “Guff” Felix, who had a remarkable story to tell about being held hostage during the 1959 prison riot in Deer Lodge.

Guff would be remembered as the highest-ranking officer taken hostage when the riot began on April 16. He was a captain then, just a few years after he closed his restaurant and began looking for work, hardly prepared by his own admittance to deal with rioting prisoners.

I took the following from a letter Amy wrote me in 1996. It shows what Guff faced as the prison’s new captain: Continue reading →