Terry County's First Jail

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Terry County's first jail. Now, Terry County got itself organized in 1904, and for the better part of a dozen years after that, if you needed to lock somebody up in Terry County, well, I imagine you had to get creative. Because it wasn't until 1916 that the county finally put up an actual jail.

And what they built was, let's say, modest. A one-room frame structure, set right there on the southeast corner of the courthouse square. Inside that humble little building sat two steel cells.

Two. That was the whole operation. One room, two cells, and whatever determination the law could muster.

For ten years, that was Terry County justice. Then 1926 came along, and the county built itself a new courthouse, with a proper jail up on the top floor. The old one-room building, having done its duty, passed into the hands of a man named A.

T. Fowler. He moved it out to his farm sometime in the 1940s, plastered over the outside walls, and put the interior to use for storage.

A jailhouse turned into a shed. There's a Texas story in that if ever I heard one. But the tale doesn't end there.

In 1974, A. T. and Terrell Fowler gave that old structure to the Terry County Heritage Museum. It got moved to this very site and restored, so you can stand here and reckon with what passed for law and order in early Terry County.

Two steel cells and a frame building. Sometimes that's all it takes to hold a county together.

What the marker says

Terry County, organized in 1904, had no jail facility until this frame structure was erected in 1916 on the southeast corner of the courthouse square. The one-room building with two steel cells was replaced in 1926 by a jail located on the top floor of the new courthouse. This small structure then became property of A. T. Fowler, who moved it to his farm in the 1940s. The outside walls were plastered and the interior used for storage. Given to Terry County Heritage Museum in 1974 by A. T. and Terrell Fowler, the old jail was transferred to this site and restored. (1975)