The North Bay Jail sits nestled near a residential area, and across from a supermarket in a busy part of North Bay.
But back in the early 1930’s, this area was far from the busy streets of downtown North Bay and was considered out of the way and in the bush.
Today the provincial correctional facility was recognized as a Heritage site by the North Bay Municipal Heritage Committee.
“We have good people in town, we have bad people in town in any community. The jail story is an interesting one because it goes from a situation downtown with a couple of cells, and then they had some cells in the courthouse and they became overcrowded. They finally, after many years, got our own large jail with the cells and the one thing that attracted us to this area is the Donald Kelly story,” stated Peter Handley, Municipal Heritage Committee Chair.
The Donald Kelly story was a national ordeal way back in 1975, when the escaped convict overpowered a guard, stole his rifle and fled from the North Bay facility.
The search for Kelly garnered international media attention as a massive manhunt eventually led to his arrest in Skead, near Sudbury about a month later.
His capture was spearheaded by famous police search dog Cloud II. That police dog was fatally shot by Kelly, who was wounded as well during a gunfight.
Cloud II, a five-year-old German shepherd, is the only OPP dog ever killed in the line of duty. The dog was first buried at the former OPP district headquarters in North Bay. However, his remains were exhumed, cremated and relocated to the OPP Museum in Orillia.
Kelly was tried and convicted for two 1969 murders and sentenced to life in prison. He died behind bars in 2009.
“That is an amazing part of North Bay’s history that the younger folks now do not know anything about. They have never heard of Donald Kelly,” said Handley.
Handley points out that Kelly is not the one that should be receiving historic recognition, but Handley believes the story should receive that recognition.
“We are trying to tell a story that has its dark side, its bright side, because he was captured after all,” said Handley.
“So it is one of North Bay’s stories that we thought should be told along with the story of the jail.”
The jail also is the home to many more unique stories.
In fact, in 1954, 29-year-old Mervyn James Hutson was hung in February of that year in the gallows of the jail that still exist to this day. He was the only person hung at the Trout Lake road facility. Hutson was later buried on the jail property.
