Briscoe County Jail
Silverton, Briscoe County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built 1894 of handcut stone hauled here by horse-drawn wagons from Tule Canyon. Early day sheriff's families rented it as residence.Lower floor was used by Red Cross workers, for sewing, during World War I. This jail stands as the lasting reminder of what courage and dedication mean in preserving law, order and integrity in Briscoe County. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1894 of stone hand-cut and hauled by horse-drawn wagon from Tule Canyon, this jail anchored law and order in newly organized Briscoe County. Early sheriffs and their families even lived in it as a residence, and during World War I its lower floor served as a workroom for Red Cross sewing volunteers. Sturdy and plain, it endured as a symbol of frontier justice on the High Plains.
Why it matters
Small county jails like this one embody how frontier communities built the institutions of law and order as settlement pushed across West Texas.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Briscoe County
Silverton, TX
Created in 1876 and organized in 1892, Briscoe County honors Andrew Briscoe, a defender of Texas liberty who fought at the Battle of Concepción, the capture of Bexar, and San Jacinto before serving as chief justice of Harris County. Carved from the vast Bexar Territory, the county took shape as settlement pushed into the Texas Panhandle, with Silverton as its seat. Its very name links this frontier land to the generation that won Texas independence.
Miner Crawford
Silverton, TX
Arkansas-born Miner Crawford became Briscoe County's first sheriff when it organized in 1892, later serving additional terms in 1913–1914 and 1921–1922. His first official act was arresting two horse thieves from New Mexico, and in his last term he and two deputies won a gun battle and seized a moonshine still. Remembered as bringing law and order while "bearing the stamp of a gentleman," he died in 1928.
First Methodist Church of Silverton
Silverton, TX
Organized as a Sunday school in 1891, the First Methodist Church of Silverton grew up with its Panhandle town. Its first pastor, the Rev. W.B. Ford, rode a circuit and preached here once a month, and early services filled a grocery store, a one-room schoolhouse, and the courthouse until the first sanctuary was finished in 1902. A replacement sanctuary, built in 1929 using some of the original materials, and later additions housed the growing congregation.
Pleasant Lafayette Crawford House
Silverton, TX
Civil War veteran Pleasant Lafayette Crawford built this Queen Anne home, with its inviting wraparound porch, in 1904 on the High Plains of the Texas Panhandle. He had come from Arkansas in the late 1880s to buy ranch land and open a mercantile store, and his family followed by covered wagon to join him. One of Silverton's founders, Crawford opened the town's first hotel in 1894, and his family kept the house until 1917.