One-room jail

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One-room calaboose built in 1936 in the ghost town of Ruby, Arizona. Calaboose Built 1936 Ruby Arizona 2015.jpg
One-room calaboose built in 1936 in the ghost town of Ruby, Arizona.

In the United States, a one-room jail is a type of jail with only one room, or cell.

Contents

One-room jail

Examples

Calaboose

In some areas of the United States, a small, free-standing, one or two room jail building is known as a calaboose, meaning "dungeon" in Spanish. Calaboose were mainly used to incarcerate prisoners for minor crimes, such as drunkenness in public or fighting, or as a temporary holding cell for when a prisoner awaited transportation to a county jail. [6] [7]

Use of the calaboose was common throughout much of the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and today surviving examples can be found in several states. Texas, with its large number of counties, has the highest concentration of historic calaboose jail buildings with over 100 known structures. Many calaboose have only a single cell, feature a curved or vaulted ceiling, and were constructed of solid concrete, although brick, stone and wooden examples also survive. [7]

Examples

Strap-iron jail

A strap-iron jail is a type of open air jail made of strap iron bars. Basically a large metal cage with either one or two cells, strap-iron jails were commonly used in the United States in the mid to late 19th century. Several surviving examples exist in Texas. [15]

Examples

See also

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The Lu Verne City Jail, also known as the Old Calaboose, is a historic building located in Lu Verne, Iowa, United States. The city built its first jail in 1899. On May 6, 1912, they decided to build the current structure at the same location. They sold the old building, and C. Black completed the new 14-by-20-foot structure for $181.15. The single-story building is composed of concrete blocks that were cast to resemble cut stone. E.T. Barnum Ironworks of Detroit, Michigan provided the parts for the cells. The jail housed short-term offenders, usually those who were inebriated, committed petty crimes, and later hobos. The building also housed the fire department's hose cart. It served as a jail until 1934 when a new city hall was built. The jail cells were moved there at that time, and this building housed a welding shop sometime after that. The jail cells were returned to this building in 1975, and it is maintained by the Lu Verne Historical Society. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

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The Jeff Davis County Courthouse is located in the town of Fort Davis, the seat of Jeff Davis County in the U.S. state of Texas. The courthouse was constructed between 1910-1911 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. The Texas Historical Commission (THC) has also designated the building as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark since 2000 and, along with the surrounding courthouse square, as a State Antiquities Landmark since 2003. The surrounding county and county seat, along with the nearby historic frontier fort at Fort Davis National Historic Site, are named after Jefferson Davis, who served as U.S. war secretary at the time of the establishment of the fort and the town, and who would later become president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.

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The Bronwood Calaboose is a calaboose built in 1900 in Bronwood, Georgia. It is a wooden jail, about 16 by 9 feet in plan, with a gable roof, built of heavy sawn timbers. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

References

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