Old County Jail - Hermitage, MO
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 37° 56.467 W 093° 18.971
15S E 472218 N 4199329
Prisoners, they say, escaped often
Waymark Code: WMKN56
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 05/05/2014
Views: 3
County of jail: Hickory County
Location of jail:Dallas St. & Spring St., courthouse lawn, Hermitage
"The old jail stands at the northwest corner of the courthouse square. Wilson's History states: "In 1870-71, the stone jail now standing in the Northwest corner of the public square was built by Philip Schleifer, of Polk County, and James A. Brakebill, supervisor, at a cost of $4,500. It was unroofed by the cyclone of 1879, and joists and roof burned out in 1899, and it was repaired on the inside with a heavy coat of cement, and steel cells put in. It had never had cells, and prisoners had frequently escaped from it." ~ Hickory County Historical Society
"The darkness seemed to be the most distressing aspect of the buildings, or maybe the smell. Even after all these years of standing empty, that indescribable scent was still there. The dampness from the two foot thick stone walls brought visions of cockroaches, lice, bedbugs, rats and other dark and damp seeking varmints. The atmosphere was similar to a cellar--a place to store or preserve. Only these storage places were for people, to hold and isolate them for a few days to a few months in order to preserve the peace for society. These places are typical old county jails surviving from the period from the Civil War up to the 1960's.
"Unfortunately, wherever there are communities of people, there needs to be jails to restrain the unlawful element. One of the first public buildings erected in a pioneer settlement was usually a jail house of some kind. The early ones were log like the small one built in Lebanon in 1851 with walls constructed of three layers of logs for greater security, or the more elaborate one like the two story log jail of Nevada which was partially burned during the Civil War.
"The stones at the Hickory County jail are eighteen inches thick. Even if a persistent prisoner could manage to chip away all the mortar around a rock, even with assistance he would have great difficulty removing such a weight. Two prisoners did manage to remove a smaller stone in the north wall of the Nevada jail. The skinny guy got away, but his fatter companion stuck fast in the hole not able to move either way, needing a doctor's assistance to get him out.
"The old stone county jail of Hickory County was built to last back in 1873. It has only this one door and a single window on each side. There was once a cell for women on the second floor, but when a fire destroyed the wooden floor, it was never replaced. The cube structure stands lonely vigil now on the northwest corner of the square dwarfed by the courthouse just a few steps away." ~ Stoney Lonesome: Springfield-Greene County Library