Millbrook Correctional

The first provincial maximum secutity prison in Ontario, it opened in 1957 as a response to a massive riot that had ripped through the Guelph Reformatory.

Originally opening with a capacity of 268 inmates, it was quickly expanded to over 500. Infamously known as "The Brook", it held adult male offenders deemed unmanageable in other Ontario jails as well as repeat offenders. Murderers and violent thugs rubbed shoulders with career burglars and rapists, eventually also mixing with people convicted of lesser offenses such as drug crimes, simple assaults and immigration violations.

The prison operated under the "Ontario Plan" in which new inmates were sent into solitary confinement cells upon arrival and had to earn their way out through the "Progressive Stage System". Under the system, inmates would be put on a so-called ‘special diet’ which included no letters, phone calls, or visitors. With good behavior and time, they were rewarded in later phases with library privileges, smokes, visitors and yard time. With top privileges they may be allowed one outgoing letter a week and the opportunity to take correspondence courses from within the prison.

The facility closed operations at end of May 2003, when it was replaced by the new Central East superjail in Lindsay. It was the playground of local kids and urban explorers for some 12 years, until its complete demolition in 2015.