Huntsville "Walls" Unit
Huntsville, Walker County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville) The Republic of Texas Congress passed a law to establish a prison system in 1842, but it wasn't until 1848, after a new law passed the state legislature, that steps were taken to achieve the goal. Huntsville was selected as the site for the state prison facility, and Governor George Tyler Wood appointed master builder Abner H. Cook as first superintendent and construction supervisor for the prison. The first three inmates -- a cattle thief, a murderer and a horse thief -- arrived to a partially completed facility in 1849. Throughout its history, the Walls Unit has cycled through periods of negligence and reform, with a variety of administrative boards governing its operations. In the 1850s, the prison operated a cotton and woolen mill with inmate labor to help generate its own revenue. In 1866, the state legislature enabled the superintendent to lease the prisoners for work in the private sector. This convict lease system lasted until the reform movement in the early 20th century accomplished its abolition in 1910. Additional reforms and a need created during the Great Depression to operate the facility more efficiently led to the establishment of canning operations, a license plate manufacturing plant, and the inauguration of the Texas Prison Rodeo. This penitentiary has held Kiowa chiefs Satanta and Big Tree, infamous gunslinger John Wesley Hardin, and Federal prisoners of war during the Civil War. As headquarters of the Texas prison system until 1989, the Walls Unit is the facility from which capital punishment was carried out from 1924 until 1964, and then again after 1982. (2001)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Authorized under the Republic of Texas and begun in 1848, the Huntsville "Walls" Unit became the state's first penitentiary, receiving its first inmates into a half-finished facility in 1849. Over the next century it ran inmate-labor textile mills, endured the notorious convict-lease system until its 1910 abolition, and launched Depression-era ventures like the license-plate plant and the famed Texas Prison Rodeo. Its cells held figures from Kiowa chiefs Satanta and Big Tree to gunfighter John Wesley Hardin.
Why it matters
As the headquarters of the Texas prison system and its site of capital punishment, the Walls Unit is a central and sobering landmark in the nation's long history of incarceration, labor, and criminal justice.
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Related people
- · Abner H. Cook
- · George Tyler Wood
- · Satanta
- · Big Tree
- · John Wesley Hardin
Related events
- · Convict lease system
- · Texas Prison Rodeo
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
State Penitentiary C.S.A.
Huntsville, TX
During the Civil War, the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville ran a textile factory where inmates, enslaved people, and free men together wove millions of yards of cloth and yarn. Its osnaburgs and uniforms became a main source of cloth for the Confederate Southwest, clothing state troops, the Confederate army, and needy soldiers' families as the Union blockade tightened. Worn machinery and financial strain eventually slowed the plant's wartime output.
The Five Courthouses of Walker County
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Walker County has raised five courthouses on the Huntsville square since 1848, each telling of fire, ambition, and rebuilding. Early buildings suffered from defective foundations and hasty repairs, and a separate "Little Courthouse" grand jury house repeatedly stood in when the main building failed or burned. The grandest was the fourth courthouse, an 1888 Victorian Gothic design by Eugene Heiner, whose interior burned in 1968 before a modern brick-and-steel structure took its place in 1970.
Huntsville Springs
Huntsville, TX
Kentucky native Pleasant Gray and his wife Hannah settled here in 1835 on land granted through Mexico's colonization effort, beside natural springs that had long served as a campsite for the Bedias Indians and for travelers passing through. Gray and his brother opened a trading post, subdivided the land, and advertised lots as far as Alabama and New Orleans, naming the new town for Huntsville, Alabama. Incorporated in 1845 and even noted by British adventurer William Bollaert, the springs supplied the town's water until an artesian well replaced them in the 1890s and the spring was finally boarded over.
Old Gibbs Store
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Thomas Gibbs opened this store in 1841, during the days of the Republic of Texas, and the present building went up in 1847 after Sanford Saint John Gibbs joined the firm. General Sam Houston was among its steady customers, and the partners drifted into banking after neighbors began storing valuables in their safe—an informal service that grew into Gibbs National Bank in 1890. It is celebrated as the oldest business in Texas under original ownership on its first site.