Wednesday, May 9, 2012 | 2:32 p.m.
CARSON CITY — People will get a chance to tour the cell house, yard and, probably, the execution chamber at a ceremony to formally bid farewell to the shuttered Nevada State Prison.
The decommissioning will be held at 11 a.m. on May 18 for what was one of the oldest prison’s in the nation until it closed in January. It was the only prison in the United States that at one time allowed inmates to gamble.
The state purchased the Warm Springs Hotel in 1862 to serve as a prison. Fire later destroyed the building, but it was rebuilt in 1867, mostly by inmate labor.
The prison system plans to ask for $385,000 in its upcoming budget to move the death chamber to the state prison in Ely, where 82 condemned inmates are housed.
The decommissioning will include talks by Gov. Brian Sandoval, state Corrections Director James “Greg” Cox, former state archivist Guy Rocha and former Corrections Director Glen Whorton.
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