Belton
Ed Blackburn, Jr. (2006:35-36) writes that the first jail in the county was constructed in 1854 and was a “typical dungeon type.” It was located on Block 22 (Lot 4). This address is now 210 North Pearl Street. It was a two-story wooden building that was 12 ft. square and had double walls made of 10 in. square logs resting on a 5 ft. foundation of stone. The foundation extended 3 ft. below the ground and 10 ft. from the walls. The first story had no doors and only two small windows that measured 10 in. square and contained metal bars. The prisoners used an outside ladder to the roof where they were let down through a trap door.
Rogers
A one-story brick calaboose is depicted on the Sanborn map dated 1921 (Sheet 2) in Rogers, Texas. It was in the middle of the street at the intersection of Cedar Street and Depot Avenue near the fire department. This was the only Sanborn map available during this study. According to local informants this calaboose was destroyed about twenty years ago.
Jack Brooks found a primary source entitled “Milam County Memories: A Story of Growing Up in Milam County, Texas” written by Milton F. Rachui. This unnumbered and unpublished manuscript discusses the Rogers calaboose in an entry entitled “From Calaboose to Mule Barn.” The following is a direct quote from this source:
“The business district of Rogers began on the east side with a two-story. The next building to the west was the calaboose. My father said that was a Spanish word meaning ‘jail.’ ”
“The jail was quite small but solid, built of red brick. It had tiny peephole windows with iron bars, two cells, no running water, and no toilet facilities other than a slop jar. Those few poor souls who ran into trouble with the law found it to be as cold as Amarillo in winter and hotter than blazes in the summer. In front of the jail was the town watering place. It had outer walls of concrete and was an imposing structure, circular in shape, and somewhat resembling an Italian fountain.”
Rogers 1921
Temple
The first Sanborn map that depicts a calaboose in Temple was published in 1888 (Sheet 4). It is depicted as a wooden structure in the southeast corner of a block labelled as the “Square.” In the center of the square was City Hall and the opera house. The first Sanborn map was published in 1885 but it does not cover this part of town. The Temple Times (Vol. 5, No. 25) dated May 29, 1886 mentions two members of a gang named Hall and Lipscomb that were able to escape from the calaboose with help from friends. This event prompted citizens to ask for a better calaboose. In those days, Temple was “infested with tramps, bums, thieves, and deadbeats, who arrive about the same date as the pay car and make a practice of robbing such unfortunates as become intoxicated, upon receipt of their month’s pay.” The debate over the location of the new calaboose became quite heated at times. One of the more common arguments was to keep it out of the public square. The Times (Vol. 15, No. 12) dated February 14, 1896 discusses the unsanitary conditions of the calaboose as a “foul, loathsome pest house.” One solution was to put cells in a room in the opera house. The seriousness of the situation prompted an article in the Times to say that a $12,000 fire station and an opera house are not needed, but a calaboose is. In a “Report of Sanitary Committee,” the condition of the calaboose is described as “being foul in the extreme, and without ventilation and literally lined with body-lice… ” It was still in that location in 1888 (Sheet 4), 1893 (Sheet 4), and 1896 (Sheet 4). On June 24, 1898 (Vol. 17, No. 28), the Times reported that the calaboose had been moved to the opera house on Wednesday night. That resulted in the city owning a $25,000 calaboose and an $11,090 fire station.
In 1900 (Sheet 2), a new one-story brick jail near the corner of West Avenue A and South 5th streets in city block 27. The name was changed to calaboose on the 1905 map (Sheet 5) and it was still there in 1910 (Sheet 5) and 1915 (Sheet 5). On the 1910 map it is described as a two-story structure. The building was vacant in 1922 and not labeled as a calaboose or jail. No jail or calaboose was seen on any of the 1922 Sanborn maps but that part of the city was not covered.
Apparently conditions in the new calaboose were not much better. The Times (Vol. 5, No. 45) dated January 10, 1912 reported that the dogs impounded in the rear of the calaboose were given regular meals while the prisoners were denied food and water at times. Father W. P. Heckman, President of the Humane Society, began providing the unfortunate inmates with tobacco and newspapers. He depicted the condition of the discharged prisoners as “without having had opportunity to bathe, and wash their clothes soiled by the grime of the street work. They could not approach a man and hope to get employment while in their repelling condition.” Prisoners were not always segregated. Father Heckman reported that at one time the six male prisoners were confined in the “run-around” and that a negro women was in the cage, with nothing intervening but the iron bars, in giving of privacy.” On January 30, 1912, the Times (Vol. 5, No. 62) reported that Father Heckman said that this was the first time that he had known when there was not at least one white man incarcerated there.
Temple 1888
Temple 1900