The prison was built to replace Sugar House Prison, which closed in 1951.[3] Its location was once remote and the nearby communities were rural. Since the prison's erection, business parks and residential neighborhoods have developed the once rural area into a suburban one. Seeking the ability to offer better treatment option state legislature initiated a process to build a new prison, deciding it was best to relocate elsewhere. Several sites were under consideration.[4] An episode of Touched by an Angel was filmed here in 2001. A study was completed in 2005 by Wikstrom Economic & Planning Consultants, Inc., to determine if moving the prison would be feasible. The test of feasibility was whether or not the value of the real estate of the current location could support the cost of relocation. It was determined that the cost of relocating the prison far exceeded the value that could be realized from the sale of the Draper prison site.[5] However, on August 19, 2015, a special session of the state legislature voted to move the prison to the west side of Salt Lake City.[6] The prison is now closed.
Facility
The large prison complex housed both male and female prisoners in separate units. The prison had a capacity of over 4,000 inmates.[2] The Draper site was located near Point of the Mountain along the Traverse Ridge and consists of several units named after surrounding mountains and mountain ranges. These units range from minimum security to supermax. The Uintas housed maximum security units for male inmates and included a supermax facility and execution chamber. Wasatch and Oquirrhs housed the medium security male inmates. Promontory was a medium security therapeutic community designed to treat drug abusers. Timpanogos housed female inmates and Olympus was the mental health unit. Lone Peak was a minimum security unit.
Scott P. Evans Architect & Associates designed the five buildings of the evaluation facility. The same company performed a reroof and a seismic upgrade of the SSD building.[7]
Troy Kell, convicted for murder after stabbing an inmate 67 times in the Central Utah Correctional Facility in 1994 and sentenced to death. He has chosen to be executed by firing squad.
Barton Kay Kirkham, convicted of murder and the last inmate to be executed by hanging in the state of Utah in 1958.[13]
Nathan Martinez, convicted of the October 1994 murder of his stepmother and half-sister. Paroled in 2018.[14]
James W. Rodgers, convicted for murder and the last inmate to be executed by firing squad in the United States in 1960, before a de facto national moratorium on capital punishment was enacted with the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Furman v. Georgia.[15]
Frances Schreuder, convicted in 1983 of first degree murder of her father in the Franklin Bradshaw murder in 1978 using her son, Marc.
Marc Schreuder, convicted in 1982 of second degree murder in the 1978 Franklin Bradshaw murder case that his mother, Frances Schreuder induced him to commit. Marc served 12 years until his release in 1994.
John Albert Taylor, executed by firing squad in 1996 for the 1988 rape and strangulation of an 11-year-old girl.[16]
Megan Huntsman, serial killer, who murdered six of her own infant children and was sentenced to six counts of 5 years-to-life in prison, with three counts to be served consecutively, and three counts to be served concurrently.[20][21][22]
^Anissa O. Taylor (February 2003). "State Prison Agency History #790". Utah Department of Administrative Services, Division of Archives & Records Service. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
^Wikstrom Economic & Planning Consultants, Inc. (2005). Evaluation of the Feasibility of Relocating the Utah State Prison. Wikstrom Economic & Planning Consultants, Inc.
