Kimble County Jail
Junction, Kimble County, Texas
Marker Inscription
THIS BUILDING, KIMBLE COUNTY'S THIRD JAIL, WAS ERECTED IN 1892 DURING THE TERM OF JUDGE W. A. SPENCER AND COMMISSIONERS G. R. ARMSTRONG, J. F.COWSERT, AND H. W. McCALEB. BUILT AT A COST OF $3,150, THE TWO-FOOT THICK HEWN STONE WALLS GAVE THE FORTRESS THE REPUTATION FOR BEING "AS SECURE AS HUNTSVILLE STATE PRISON". AMONG THE MANY PRISONERS HELD HERE WAS THE 1896 KILLER, GIP HARDIN, BROTHER OF NOTED BADMAN JOHN WESLEY HARDIN. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK - 1964
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1892 as Kimble County's third jail, this two-foot-thick hewn-stone building earned a reputation for being 'as secure as Huntsville State Prison.' Among its many prisoners was Gip Hardin, held here in 1896—brother of the notorious Texas gunman John Wesley Hardin. The fortress-like structure was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1964.
Why it matters
The jail stands as a monument to the coming of law to the Texas Hill Country, its stone walls once holding kin of one of the Old West's most infamous outlaws.
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Related people
- · Gip Hardin
- · John Wesley Hardin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Kimble County
Junction, TX
This hill country along the Llano was home to Jumano and Apache peoples when Spanish explorers passed through in the 1600s and 1700s, before the Comanche came to dominate the region by the mid-1800s. Frontier forts and the Texas Rangers guarded the area as Anglo settlement pushed westward, and the county was organized in 1876, named for an Alamo defender. Long troubled by outlaws until the Rangers restored order in the 1880s, it settled into a livelihood of sheep and goat ranching for wool and mohair.
Fight of Sheriff's Posse with Cattle Rustlers
Junction, TX
On February 6, 1897, Kimble County sheriff John L. Jones and five deputies tracked the Nite brothers and J. C. Crane to a remote spot with cattle and horses stolen from local ranchers. In the gunfight that followed, Crane and Jourd Nite were killed and buried where they fell, while a wounded Jim Nite survived to stand trial weeks later under an alias.
Colonel John Griffith
Junction, TX
Born in 1831, John Griffith served as a Confederate officer, and returned from the Civil War to a family scattered by the conflict — his wife and children having fled Arkansas to Texas behind a milk cow and a one-eyed mule, famously reunited in 1866 when the mule was recognized near the Comanche courthouse. Settling at Buffalo Gap, he helped organize Taylor County in 1878 before moving to Kimble County, building property and civic influence. His story typifies the Southern veterans who rebuilt their lives on the West Texas frontier after the war.
Stevenson, Coke R., Texas Statesman
Junction, TX
Born in Kimble County in 1888 with barely two years of formal schooling, Coke R. Stevenson worked his way from a boyhood ranch job to owning a freight line, then rose through banking, law, and county office. He became the first Texan to hold the state's three highest offices, and as governor from 1941 to 1947 he turned a large deficit into a surplus while championing measures from the first driver's-license law to the Lower Colorado River Authority.