The Old Allen County Jail was built in 1869 and
was in operation until 1958. The original cells on the first
floor were wooden with iron bars, but those cells were replaced in 1891
with the steel cage that is currently on the first floor of the jail.
That cage, state of the art for the time, held 16 total
prisoners, four to each cell, while the front cell was used as a drunk
tank, solitary confinement, or the women's cell, as the situation
required. The second floor of the jail contained living quarters
for the jailer and his family.
In 1904, the county remodeled the jail and made
cells in the upstairs area. The exterior stairway was removed and the
door sealed. The second floor was
divided into cells with steel doors and metal walls. There was a
Women's Detention Cell and the room at the northwest was used as an
office for the jailer or sheriff who also had a room or office in the
Allen County Courthouse. With the opening of the new Allen County
Courthouse and its modern jail facilities, the old county jail was
finally closed in 1958.
A few dangerous criminals and hundreds of minor
offenders were confined
in the jail in the 89 years that the jail was open. More than a few
prisoners escaped confinement
from the jail over the years, many by removing the iron bars on the
windows or by cutting a hole in the roof. Only a few months after the
jail was opened, a small mob of men overpowered the sheriff and removed
one E.G. Dalson from the jail on the evening of June 27, 1870. He was
then taken to a barn outside of Iola, KS and hung. He had been jailed
on charges of murdering his stepson. Despite this incident, two
adjoining counties began sending their criminals to Allen County for
incarceration in the jail during the later 1870s. Many of the
prisoners have left their mark on the jail, evidenced by the graffiti
covering the walls of the first floor. A few guests have even
managed to find a relative's name scratched into the wall.
The Old Jail Museum is constructed with two-foot
thick limestone walls and at one time the entire structure was covered
with rough stucco. The stucco was later removed except in the
window recesses. This was patchy and cracked, so all the
remaining stucco was removed in the spring of 1986 when many window and
plaster repairs were made. The Old Jail
Museum was used for several years to house all of the collections of
the historical society that could not be placed in the Museum Room of
the Courthouse.
In 1977, the Old Jail was placed on the National Register of Historic
Places by the U.S. Department of Interior.