Old County Jail -- Glen Rose TX
N 32° 14.087 W 097° 45.390
14S E 617158 N 3567138
The WPA-built old Somervell County Jail, now part of the Glen Rose Historic District, sports sign explaining its history
Waymark Code: WMTRCZ
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 01/02/2017
Views: 2
This old jail served Somervell County for 50 years, before it was closed by the state for not meeting modern jail standards.
Now part of the Glen Rose Historic District, this jail building sports a local historical information sign affixed to the front of the jail. That sign reads as follows:
"OLD COUNTY JAIL
Built in 1934, funded as a WPA government project during the Depression, as a replacement for the first county jail built in 1884, located on the same site.
The new structure housed the sheriff and/or jailer plus his family on the lower floor; prisoners were upstairs. The jailer’s wife cooked meals for the prisoners. And woodstove was tended by the prisoners. The original cell cage sits in the middle of the room with the runaround for exercise and for lesser felons.
A jailbreak occurred in the 1960s when prisoners cut the bars at night and covered the cut with wax shoe polish. On another night later, they pried the bars back with a stick of stove wood, soap their bodies and slipped out the window to the ground. They were apprehended, though.
In the 1970s, the state of Texas condemned this building as a jail, forcing the county to build a new one. The county refurbished this building in 1991 for office space. The upstairs remains unchanged.
[Somervell County historical commission; Glen Rose/Somervell County Chamber of Commerce.]
Group that erected the marker: Somervell County Historical Commission
URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: [Web Link]
Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary:
SE Corner of Cedar and Vernon Streets
Glen Rose, TX
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