Museums of Hood County
The Old Jail Museum
208 N. Crockett St, Granbury, TX 76048
Open Friday, Staturday & Sunday 1 pm to 4 pm
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The
first Hood County jail was a log cabin built near the Brazos River.
Not only was the cabin becoming inadequate by the late Nineteenth
century, but it was decided that a place needed to be built
providing for the possibility of local executions, if necessary. The
one legal execution in Hood County was a 1875 hanging of an elderly
man over a court decision involving a land dispute. Built in 1885
and operated as the Hood County Jail from 1886 to 1978, this
building served as the only jail for both city and county prisoners.
Texas law was eventually changed that all capital punishment would
be carried out by the state in a centralized location, so no gallows
were ever erected and the large open room was used as a meeting
place for the prisoners and their attorneys.
The first floor contains four rooms and a bathroom intended as the Sheriff's living quarters. Throughout the years, records indicate that Sheriffs, City Marshals, or Deputies actually lived downstairs, depending on the needs of the individuals. The Second floor has three rooms; the gallows, the single cell (used for women and the insane), and the main cell. The main cell has within it a freestanding iron "cage" designed as 2 cells with up to 4 beds per cell. Within the cage and outside the cells is a common toilet and wash basin. Behind the jail building is the kitchen, where the wife of the resident official would cook the inmates meals, a required 2 per day in the early years. The space between the kitchen and the jail was later closed in.
Although the building was state of the art when it
was built (it had plumbing on both floors!), hard use and lack of
funds allowed the building to fall into disrepair. Several offices
like city police, county sheriff, and eventually DPS, including
dispatch, moved into the lower floor. Long before the Brazos River
was dammed in the 1970s and Lake Granbury was
formed, the old stone jail was starting to show its age. No major
improvements had been made since it was wired for electricity in the
1930s. When the County built their new Law Enforcement Center and
moved, the Chamber of Commerce used the building. During their
tenure, the Chamber received a grant to renovate the first floor, as
it can be seen today.
Want More?
The President of the Hood County Museum, Inc. is Karen Nace, and she can be contacted by phone at (817) 573-5135 or email at oldjailmuseum@gmail.com.