Most of my work today consisted of adding calabooses to the website that I have visited. I wrote part of what I think defines a calaboose. It is important to remember that any jail can be referred to as a calaboose but historically only the tiny ones have been so called. When I look at the Sanborn maps and document past and present jails I use the terms on the maps. I have found that not one county jail so far has been referred to as a calaboose. With very few exceptions, a calaboose is very small and only one story. Other names include lockup and jail. At the beginning of this project I thought that the calaboose was a feature restricted to small towns, usually unincorporated. That is not the case. It was not uncommon for a calaboose (labelled as such on the maps) to have been constructed in a county seat. Sometimes, they preceded the formal county jail and probably served as an interim lockup until the big jail could be built. Other times, they co-existed with the county jail. Possibly, there was still a need for a small lockup as well as the big jail. The range in size of those buildings that I have included as a calaboose is about 72 square feet to over 400 square feet. The larger examples have multiple cells.
April 6, 2013 (by Bill Moore)
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