Scurry County Jail of 1912
Snyder, Scurry County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1911 the commissioners court of Scurry County presented plans for a new jail, since the two previous jail houses (built in 1884 and 1886) had proven insufficient for the county's needs. Land at this site was purchased with bond money, and the brick building was completed, using local labor, in 1912. The first floor housed the jailer and his family, while the prisoners cells and a hospital occupied the second and third stories. A trapdoor was included for use as a hanging gallows. This jail served the citizens of Scurry County for over sixty years. (1982)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
By 1911 Scurry County's two earlier jails, built in 1884 and 1886, had proven too small, so the commissioners court used bond money to purchase this site and raise a sturdy brick building, finished with local labor in 1912. The jailer and his family lived on the first floor, while prisoner cells and even a small hospital occupied the upper two stories. A grim feature set into the design was a trapdoor meant to serve as a hanging gallows. The jail did its duty for more than sixty years.
Why it matters
The building reflects how growing Texas counties institutionalized law and order in the early twentieth century, gallows and all, as the frontier gave way to settled governance.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Methodist Church
Snyder, TX
This Snyder congregation traces its beginnings to a brush-arbor revival on Ennis Creek in July 1883, out on the open West Texas range. Its first one-room church rose in 1889 on land donated by the T. N. Nunn family, and when the flock outgrew it the courthouse became a makeshift sanctuary. A red-brick church with a domed roof and sloping floor followed in 1914, succeeded by later buildings as the congregation kept growing.
First Presbyterian Church
Snyder, TX
Organized in 1892 as the First Cumberland Presbyterian Church with just seven charter members, this West Texas congregation took root in the young ranching town of Snyder. In 1906 it joined the mainline Presbyterian Church, and by 1929 the small but determined membership had completed the sanctuary whose leaded stained-glass windows honor their sacrifice. A bell forged in 1902, carried from an earlier frame church, still rings today.
Site of Store of William Henry (Pete) Snyder
Snyder, TX
William Henry "Pete" Snyder — a Civil War veteran who had mined Colorado gold, built Kansas railroads, and hauled freight and buffalo hides — opened Snyder's first trading post here in 1878, its lumber freighted by ox-wagon from Fort Worth. The store supplied buffalo hunters living in dugouts along Deep Creek. After three years Snyder left the trade, laid out part of the original townsite, and sold lots before moving to Colorado City, where he died in 1916.
Site of Sanitarium of Alonzo Orrin Scarborough (1860-1952) Pioneer Doctor
Snyder, TX
Alonzo Orrin Scarborough came to Snyder in 1881 as a ranch horse trainer, taught himself medicine by 'reading' it, and began practicing in 1886 before earning his M.D. from the Kentucky School of Medicine in 1889. For decades he answered calls on horseback, riding alone through the night across the sparsely settled Scurry County range, and served as chief railroad surgeon and the county's first public health officer. In 1910 he opened the Scarborough Sanitarium, the county's first hospital, and kept practicing until he was ninety.