Canyon

The Sanborn map dated 1910 (Sheet 1) shows a small one-story wood jail in Canyon, Texas. It was located in city block 51 northeast of the courthouse square.  An alley that ran east west divided this block and the jail was on the south side near the corner of 7^th and East 2^nd streets.  The size of this jail appears to be consistent with some of the jails referred to on this website as calabooses.  It was gone in 1920 (Sheet 2,) and no other jails were seen.  The only Sanborn maps available at the time of this project were published in 1910 and 1920.

Mary Whitten and Janice Cranmer are local residents who shared their knowledge about early jails in Canyon.   They are aware of the wooden jail mentioned above, and they described a second jail in town that was located between 15th and 16th streets and 3rd and 4th avenues.  This was a small, one-story building made  of brick that probably came from the Corsicana Brick Company in Corsicana, Texas (Navarro County).  The company was bought out by the Magnolia Company, based in Dallas, in the late 1920s.   The date of construction of the second jail is not known, but it probably occurred sometime between 1920 and 1940.  This statement is based on the fact that it is not depicted on the 1920 Sanborn map, and Mary remembers it being there in the 1940s when her family moved to Canyon.   According to Janice, the streets in Canyon were paved with brick in 1923, and it seems likely that the city would have purchased enough brick to build the new jail at the same time.   Mary said that the Night Watchman was Otto White who was followed by Wilburn Davis.   The majority of prisoners were drunks and persons engaged in other forms of rowdy behavior.  Janice recalls that the prisoners were fed twice daily by Carl Hair, the owner of the Palace Cafe, pursuant to an agreement with the city.   After the brick jail became obsolete (circa 1955), the city used it for storage until it was demolished sometime in the 1960s.

Canyon 1910