Today, I visited a really interesting calaboose in Wortham, Texas (Freestone County) just north of Mexia.  Rhonda Holley discovered it earlier on her way home from Oklahoma but she did not have time to fully document it.  So, she and her mother (Donna Smith) went with me and we had a great time.  This calaboose was built in 1915 and is in really good condition.  It will be described in more detail later on this website.

One of the fun things about this project is the interesting things we see that are not expected.  The theater in Mexia, for example, is a great piece of neon art and the only one like this I have ever seen.

We are always looking for calabooses in every town we pass through when we have time.  In Wortham, Rhonda’s mom spotted a suspicious brick structure next to a great Victorian house built in 1895 by a local Judge.  The owner of the house graciously let us look at it and once inside I saw bars on the only window.  Was this a calaboose?  I thought so.  The owners said that it had been used as a garage.  That may be true but it could have had a previous life as a calaboose.  Did the Judge have it built next to his house for convenience.  Was it actually built as a garage?  Both seem possible at this time.  The brick structure does not seem to go with the wooden Victorian house but brick was plentiful since the nearby town of Corsicana was a major manufacturer of brick.  Some of the streets in Wortham are paved with that brick.

There are way too many interesting buildings to try to document in these small Texas towns and we have to remained focused on our mission – calabooses.

Usually, we are out and about at lunch time or dinner time.  Today, we had lunch at the Drilling Rig in Mexia.  They had a buffet and a menu.  Rhonda remembers eating there in the past and said the bread pudding was excellent.  Her mother had it and agreed.  Rhonda had a BLT and asked the waitress if the French Fries were homemade or frozen.  They said they are frozen but on request they will make some fresh and they were great.  This kind of service is quite rare.

It was a good day.  We documented a really interesting calaboose and possibly found an older one in the same town.