Corsicana City Jail of 1908
Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The city's first brick jail, this structure was erected in 1908 adjacent to the city hall on a lot purchased from Rebecca A. Croft, widow of Judge William Croft. On the lower floor were cells and on the top floor the police chief's office, occupied by Will S. Knight, Corsicana's first police chief, 1906-36. His office was moved to the new city hall in 1924 and two more cells added. The facilities were heated by gas in the winter and at times were crowded with as many as 80 prisoners. This building housed the city jail until 1974.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Corsicana built its first brick jail in 1908 beside the city hall, stacking cells on the lower floor and the police chief's office above. Will S. Knight, the town's first police chief, worked here through the boisterous decades of an oil-era city that sometimes packed as many as eighty prisoners inside its gas-heated walls. The building served as the city jail until 1974.
Why it matters
It stands as a tangible relic of civic order-keeping in a booming early-twentieth-century Texas town, where growth outpaced the institutions meant to govern it.
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Related people
- · Will S. Knight
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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