Palo Pinto County Jail - Palo Pinto, TX - Retired Prisons on Waymarking.com

"The jail is a two story masonry cube, thirty by forty feet in plan and twenty-eight in height. Quarters are provided for the jailer on the first floor while cells are located on the second floor. Built by the firm Martin, Byrnes and Johnston.

The walls are constructed of brown sandstone, thirty-two inches thick, which was quarried near Palo Pinto. Quarry-faced stones laid in regular ashlar pattern provide a texture to the facades of the building. The first floor door and window openings are spanned with cut-stone arches comprised of three voussoirs. The intrados of each arch follows a semi-circular curve while the extrados follows the curve of a pointed arch. Cut stom lintels with segmental arch curvatures span the second floor openings. Sills of cut stone are employed for all window openings and cut-stone imposts support the arches and lintels. The door openings incorporate a smaller semi-circular arch within the pointed arch. The composition is crowned with a fine cut-stone entablature. These details work together to provide a simple aesthetic distinction for the jail.

The interior of the ground floor was divided into living quarters. A kitchen, living room, and bedrooms accommodated the jailer and his family. Also located on this floor was a trustees' room which was separated from the kitchen for preparation of the prisoners food by a steel door.

Housed on the second floor, accessible by an interior iron stair from the trustees' room, were the free-standing iron cages which served as cells. These cages incorporated the latest developments in detention facility design. In 1907 officials installed a device for execution by hanging, which evidently was never used. The second story openings are secured by three sets of iron bars; Single sets of bars secure the first floor windows while double sets secure the doors."