Corsicana City Jail of 1908

The jail came out of a ledger of small decisions. A Corsicana Daily Sun article reprinted by the Navarro County site says the commission adopted architect H. B. Lochhead's $4,000 plan on March 30, 1908. Berry and Metcalf won the contract at $5,275, the city bought the Croft lot for $750, and the commission accepted the finished jail on October 5. It had two rear cells downstairs and the chief's office above. A small log calaboose had served before the county opened its own jail in 1876. The First National Bank bought the building in 1974.

What the plaque says

Corsicana City Jail of 1908 The city's first brick jail, this structure was erected in 1908 adjacent to the city hall on a lot purchased from Rebecca A. Croft, widow of Judge William Croft. On the lower floor were cells and on the top floor the police chief's office, occupied by Will S. Knight, Corsicana's first police chief, 1906-36. His office was moved to the new city hall in 1924 and two more cells added. The facilities were heated by gas in the winter and at times were crowded with as many as 80 prisoners. This building housed the city jail until 1974. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 0.3 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 20 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 30 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.

More markers nearby

• The First National Bank of Corsicana — steps away
• Corsicana Public Library — steps away
• Corsicana — steps away
• Samuel Wistar Johnson, M. D. — steps away