HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

Logan County Jail (1874–1977)

Russellville, Logan County, Kentucky

Marker Inscription

Logan County Jail, 1874-1977. This building replaced an old jail three blocks east which burned. To finance construction of new jail, a property tax was passed, 1869. By December 1874, jail operated on this site. Jail restored, 1979-1980. County records stored here by order of Fiscal Court. Logan County Genealogical Society designated to clean and file the records. Presented by Rena Milliken.

Erected by Kentucky Historical Society

The Story

Financed by a property tax passed in 1869, this Russellville jail replaced an earlier lockup that had burned and opened by December 1874. For more than a century it served as the county's symbol of law and order before closing in 1977. Restored in 1979–80, it now safeguards county records tended by the local genealogical society.

Why it matters

The jail marks a century of frontier-into-modern justice in Logan County and its second life as a keeper of the community's historical memory.

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Themes & tags

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