Oakalla Prison Key, 1914 - 1991 The Oakalla Prison Farm was a full-service facility which opened on September 2, 1912. The first inmate was William Daley, sentenced on July 31, 1912 to serve a year of hard labour for stealing some fountain pens valued at over $10. By April 30, 1913, some 328 prisoners had passed through the jail's doors. From 1919 until the abolition of the death penalty in 1959, 44 prisoners were executed by hanging on the Oakalla site. The first execution was that of 25 year-old Alex Ignace on August 29, 1919. Leo Mantha was the last prisoner executed, on April 28, 1959. In 1936 there were several double and even one triple hanging. Thousands of prisoners passed through the doors of Oakalla - renamed the Lower Mainland Regional Correctional Centre in 1970 - -before it closed on June 30, 1991. Originally designed to house a maximum of 484 prisoners Oakalla's population peaked in 1962-63 at 1,269 inmates. With population averages of 600-plus, overcrowding was always a problem. In the institution's final years two nationally - spotlighted events occurred. Thirteen maximum security prisoners escaped on New Year's Day 1988 following a December 27, 1987 uprising and on November 22, 1983 a violent and costly riot took place. Rioters caused more than $150,000 damage in a two-day spree. Oakalla was replaced by the Vancouver Pretrial Services Centre, the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre and the Surrey Pretrial Services Centre.