Jeff Davis County Jail
Fort Davis, Jeff Davis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
THE COMMUNITY OF FORT DAVIS GREW UP AROUND THE MILITARY POST OF THE SAME NAME, ESTABLISHED BY THE U.S. ARMY IN 1854 TO PROTECT TRAVELERS ON THE SAN ANTONIO-EL PASO ROAD. FORT DAVIS WAS DESIGNATED AS THE PRESIDIO COUNTY SEAT WHEN THE COUNTY WAS ORGANIZED IN 1875, BUT THE COUNTY SEAT WAS RELOCATED TO MARFA IN 1885. WHEN JEFF DAVIS COUNTY WAS ORGANIZED IN 1887, FORT DAVIS WAS AGAIN SELECTED AS A COUNTY SEAT. THIS JAIL STRUCTURE WAS BUILT IN 1910-1911 ALONG WITH A NEW COUNTY COURTHOUSE; THE TWO BUILDINGS REPLACED AN ADOBE COURTHOUSE AND JAIL STRUCTURE BUILT IN 1880, WHEN FORT DAVIS WAS THE SEAT OF PRESIDIO COUNTY. ARCHITECT L.L. THURMAN OF DALLAS DESIGNED BOTH THE NEW COURTHOUSE AND JAIL, AND FALLS CITY CONSTRUCTION COMPANY OF LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, WAS CONTRACTED TO CONSTRUCT BOTH BUILDINGS. THE STRUCTURE IS A SMALL-SCALE EXAMPLE OF THE FORTRESS-STYLE JAILS AND PRISONS THAT WERE POPULAR IN THE UNITED STATES DURING THE 19TH CENTURY. THE ONE-STORY JAIL BUILDING WAS CONSTRUCTED WITH PRESSED CONCRETE BLOCK WHICH WAS PLASTERED AND SCORED TO RESEMBLE ASHLAR BLOCKS. A CRENELLATED PARAPET TOPS THE FOUR EXTERIOR WALLS. THE INTERIOR IS DIVIDED INTO FOUR ROOMS, INCLUDING A FRONT ENTRYWAY AND OFFICE, A KITCHEN, A JAILER’S BEDROOM, AND THE CELL BLOCK THAT INCLUDES THE ENTIRE REAR PORTION OF THE BUILDING. THE JAIL RETAINED ITS ORIGINAL FUNCTION UNTIL 1978, WHEN THE BUILDING NO LONGER COMPLIED WITH CURRENT JAIL STANDARDS, AND IT WAS DECIDED THAT SENDING PRISONERS TO MARFA WOULD BE MORE ECONOMICALLY SOUND. AMONG OTHER TENANTS, THE COUNTY CLERK’S OFFICE OCCUPIED THE BUILDING 2002-2009.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The town of Fort Davis grew up around the U.S. Army post established in 1854 to guard travelers on the San Antonio–El Paso Road, and it served as a county seat for both Presidio and, from 1887, Jeff Davis County. This crenellated, fortress-style jail was built in 1910–1911 alongside a new courthouse, designed by Dallas architect L.L. Thurman and disguised in scored plaster to resemble cut ashlar stone. Divided into an office, kitchen, jailer's quarters, and cell block, it held prisoners until 1978.
Why it matters
The little fortress jail reflects both the frontier origins of far West Texas county government and the era's fashion for imposing, castle-like architecture as a symbol of law and order.
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Related people
- · L.L. Thurman
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jeff Davis County Courthouse
Fort Davis, TX
Erected in 1910–1911 to replace the county's original 1880 adobe courthouse, this Classical Revival building was designed by the Dallas firm of L. L. Thurman and Co. and built by a Louisville, Kentucky, contractor. A massive Doric portico fronts the concrete-and-stone structure, whose walls show alternating bands of locally quarried pink rusticated stone beneath a Beaux Arts clock tower fitted with a Seth Thomas timepiece. More than a century on, it still serves as the seat of Jeff Davis County government.
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In 1873, a former Buffalo Soldier of the 24th U.S. Infantry named Archie Smith claimed 160 acres near Dolores Mountain in the Trans-Pecos country and raised an adobe home with native oak beams. Its vaulted room served as a family chapel open to neighbors of every denomination before the town's first Catholic church was built. Later owners, the Carltons, preserved and eventually restored the structure, which survives as the oldest home still lived in at Fort Davis.
St. Joseph Catholic Church
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Catholic clergy began serving the Fort Davis area around 1872, and the first St. Joseph Church rose in 1879 under Father Joseph Hoban, who made it the central church of a vast region ministered by circuit-riding priests. From 1892, Carmelite friar Father Brocardus Eeken and his brethren rode thousands of miles a year to tend 18 churches and mission stations across the Trans-Pecos and Big Bend, and a new church was consecrated in 1899. Parishes in Alpine, Marfa, and beyond were carved from this mother congregation, which still serves a diverse community today.
Granado Mountain
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