Orange
This calaboose is unique in that it was constructed on a wooden platform that extended over the Sabine River south of Front Street. According to Linda Garrett, Office Manager at Heritage House in Orange, the photo (below) of this jail was taken in 1888. The first Sanborn maps available during this study were drafted in 1885 and this jail is not depicted. Therefore, it was constructed sometime between 1885 and 1888. This jail first appears on the 1896 Sanborn map (Sheet 2) south of Front Street and the Texas & New Orleans Railroad. The small wooden building is labeled as a calaboose but it does not appear to extend over the river. It was very close to (or attached to) another one-story wooden building behind it. There was also a small one-story wooden building to its right.
In 1896 (Sheet 7), there was a two-story brick county jail at the corner of Border and Henderson (100 block) streets. It is likely that the wooden calaboose was the only jail in town before the construction and occupation of the brick county jail. It also appears on the 1901 (Sheet 3) and 1904 (Sheet 3) Sanborn maps depicting the same footprint with no apparent extension over the water. The county jail continued to be in the same location with some modifications through 1919, the last available map for Orange, Texas.
Orange 1888
(Photo courtesy of the Heritage House in Orange, Texas)
Orange 1896
The city burned the calaboose in 1908 to make room for construction of a new jail and other buildings. It is not on the Sanborn map dated 1909 (Sheet 3) and this confirms its destruction in 1908 by the city.
In 1914 (Sheet 9) there was a one story wood jail next to the two-story brick fire department at the corner of 4th and Main (block 4). Apparently, this is the “new jail” that was constructed following the burning of the earlier one. It was still there in 1915 (Sheet 5) but in 1919 (Sheet 4) it had been replaced by a one story concrete jail that appears to fit the definition of a calaboose in terms of its size. At that time the Fire Department and City Hall appear to share the same brick building. Although, a formal county jail existed as early as 1896, there appears to have been a need for more than one lockup. Perhaps, one served the city and the other was mainly used by the county. The U.S. Census does not list any prisoners in the Orange calaboose in 1910 (Hill 1918:294).
Orange 1914
Orange 1919
Linda Garrett provided me with the following quote by K. A. Mitchell (1989:15) from an article in the Orange Leader dated June 10, 1908 (see References) that discusses the decision to demolish the calaboose that extended over the river.
CREMATION IN SIGHT FOR UNSIGHTLY CITY CALABOOSE OVER RIVER
“Another move has been made by the city council that will draw the undivided appreciation of the citizens and especially the business men of the city, who have long expressed the desire that the old worn out dilapidated frame structure hanging on the ragged edge of nothing, and directly over the river, sometimes referred to as the City Bastille, or more properly and commonly called calaboose, be torn down.
“This move was made this morning (June 10, 1908) when the city purchased from Elmer Harmon a lot of ground corner Main and Fourth streets, with a frontage of 33 feet on Fourth Street, the deal having been consummated by Alderman F. H. Farwell and upon which will be erected a building just as soon as the council can secure the money and the old bunch of boards overhanging the placid waters of the Sabine will be given a cremation.”
The new city jail is described as a place “… where prisoners may rest comfortably at night, without danger of effecting their escape or falling through into the Sabine.”
In the 1987 edition of Las Sabinas: The Official Publication of the Orange County Historical Society (Vol. XIII, Book 3, page 6), the local calaboose is described as “… the first bastille of the city of Orange, was located just off Front Street and it opened its arms to daily violators of statutory law.”
The photograph of this wooden jail is dated 1888 and is on file at the Heritage House Museum in Orange, Texas. It can also be viewed online at The Portal to Texas History.