Historic Oglethorpe County Jail

Historic Oglethorpe County Jail. Completed in 1879, Oglethorpe County's jail reflects the intention of local leaders to deliver a striking public building. Its elegant design reflects the popularity of the Italianate style at the time, with such architectural details as arched windows, granite quoins, and bracketed cornices. The plans also called for the building to be well ventilated and one of the first in the county to be equipped with running water. Lumber, brick, and granite construction materials were all manufactured or gathered from within just a few miles of this site., As built, the jail contained seven cells made of plaster walls much like those in Lexington's finest houses. Typically, only a few prisoners occupied the jail at any one time while they awaited trials that were held two to three times a year in the county courthouse. The sheriff delivered meals made by his wife to the prisoners twice daily. In between these visits, the prisoners were usually unsupervised and allowed to walk the halls for exercise. Escapes were frequent. Those convicted of minor crimes served their time not in jail, but laboring on chain gangs., In 1935, officials contracted for the installation of modern steel cells to curb escapes. In the early 1970s, when the sheriff's office was moved upstairs, guards supervised the prisoners on a continuous basis. Modernizations also were begun on the building with new plumbing, heating, alarms, and a fire sprinkler system. Several additions were built onto the rear of the structure, and nearly the entire lot was paved. Many former windows were bricked in or replaced by doors. When crowding became a problem in the 1990s, the county soon after decided to build a new jail outside of Lexington., In May of 2007 the last prisoners vacated the building. In the following years Historic Oglethorpe County and the county government removed most of the twentieth century additions and clutter in order to return the building to its nineteenth century appearance. Today it stands once again as an elegant building that reflects the pride of Oglethorpe County in its public architecture.