DUANE
Get the App
Duane's take
The official marker for the Red River County Jail tells it this way, and I'm just the messenger. Now, if you're rollin' through Red River County and you spot a building with finely crafted stonework and intricate metal cornices reaching up toward the sky, don't let it fool you into thinking you've stumbled onto some grand civic palace. That, friend, is the jail.
The second jail, to be precise. Completed in 1889, this structure was the work of two architects: Maj. S.
B. Haggart and Marshall Sanguinet. And those two men did not come to play.
They designed the Red River County Jail in the elaborate high Victorian Italianate style, which is a fancy way of saying this lockup was dressed to impress. Stonework crafted with real care. Metal cornices worked with genuine intricacy.
The kind of detail you'd expect on a building folks were proud of, not one they were hoping people would forget. And there's a reason for that pride. Haggart and Sanguinet conceived this jail as a companion building to the Red River County Courthouse, which had been completed five years earlier.
The two structures were meant to belong together, to speak the same architectural language across the county square. So here's the thing that tends to stop people in their tracks. Red River County built a jail so handsome it was designed to match the courthouse.
Whatever your business in that county seat, they were going to make sure the architecture was consistent, whether you were there by choice or otherwise. That building has been standing since 1889, and it's still talking.
What the marker says
This building was completed in 1889 as the second jail for Red River County. Architects Maj. S. B. Haggart and Marshall Sanguinet designed the structure as a companion building to the County Courthouse, which had been completed five years earlier. The elaborate high Victorian Italianate styling of the Red River County Jail features finely crafted stonework and intricate metal cornices. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982