Texas Prison Museum

The Texas Prison Museum is at 491 State Highway 75 North in Huntsville. Wikipedia says it was founded in 1989 downtown and moved to its current site in 2002. The museum's own site lists exhibits on the history of the Texas prison system, including the Texas Prison Rodeo, the 1974 Huntsville Unit hostage siege, The Great Escape and the Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery. Wikipedia lists a life-size replica cell and a large collection of work made by prisoners.

Wikipedia calls Old Sparky, the electric chair used from 1924 to 1964, the main exhibit. The Handbook of Texas says a 1923 law moved executions from county jails to the state, and the first five men electrocuted, on February 8, 1924, were all African American. The Handbook counts 361 executions by electric chair through the last one, of Joseph Johnson, on July 30, 1964. The Walls Unit in Huntsville opened as the state's first enclosed penitentiary, taking its first prisoners on October 1, 1849.

Prison labor is part of that history too. Under convict leasing, the state hired its prisoners out to private companies; in 1871 it leased the penitentiary to Ward, Dewey and Company of Galveston for fifteen years (the state took control back in early 1877), and the state ended all of its leases by the end of 1912. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon. Adults pay $8.