Inside Oregon’s oldest prison: 114-degree cells and $13M annual repairs

On stifling days last summer, Reyes Miranda baked in his cell, the metal walls so hot to the touch that he worried he’d burn himself. At night, he slept on the cool concrete floor for relief.

Miranda lives on the fifth tier of one of the Oregon State Penitentiary ’s hulking cellblocks, where corrections officials this year say temperatures soared up to 114 degrees. Two industrial fans in a far corner of the cellblock hardly made a difference for the men who live here.

Leaders of the Oregon Department of Corrections this year floated for the first time the idea of eventually replacing the prison, Oregon’s oldest and second largest, citing sweltering summer heat, an outdated design dating to the 1860s and the spiraling costs of maintaining the complex on State Street about two miles