Introduction
When I started this project, I looked at Sanborn fire insurance maps in order to confirm location and dates of construction of known calabooses when possible. These maps also depicted calabooses that were not known to me and many of these are no longer present. Therefore, the purpose of this part of the website is to document the towns where calabooses used to be and provide as much information as possible about them such as location, size, and materials used in their construction. In many cases, there are no recent Sanborn maps for Texas towns. Those available online at the Perry-Casteñada Library cover the years from 1877 to 1948. Therefore, there are probably numerous towns with calabooses that were constructed after 1948 that I am not aware of. Also, the Sanborn Company did not map every town in Texas, and many small communities were not visited. In some cases, there is only one map for a town or the maps that were drafted did not cover the entire town. I am making my best effort to contact as many persons and agencies as possible to see if any of these calabooses are still standing and if others were built after the date of the latest map reviewed, and I have found a few using this method.
The only structures depicted here are those labelled as a calaboose or small one-story buildings regardless of how they are referred to on the map. In addition, I am keeping a record of how these very small jails are referred to on the Sanborn maps. I have learned that the vast majority of small, one-story jails are referred to as a calaboose while some are called lockups or jails. In Carrizo Springs, there was a one-story rock structure that the mappers labelled as a county jail. Because of its apparent small size it is included as a possible calaboose. In 1900, there was a two-story brick building in El Paso labelled as a calaboose. Normally, this type of structure would be referred to as a county jail but it needs to be remembered that the word calaboose can be applied to any building that was used for the detention of prisoners.
Those calabooses that are discussed below are arranged alphabetically by town within the County.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
None
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
None
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
None
Y
Z
None