Grapevine Calaboose

Grapevine Calaboose. . , In June, 1909 the Grapevine Town Council voted unanimously to build the community's first "calaboose" - town jail. Grapevine had previously relied on the Tarrant County Sheriff to provide official law enforcement. But now the Council gave Town Marshall W. T. Bigbee authorization to construct the 8 foot by 10 by 8 foot concrete jail on land one block west of this site, near the present water tower. In the same meeting, Marshall Bigbee was also given $4.50 for the purchase of a pair of handcuffs. It is supposed the Marshall may have had his own gun at the time. , In 1911, the Marshall was offered a $25 a month salary, perhaps in recognition of his quick response to a robbery in February ay the J.T. Yancry and Son store on Main Street. Seven watches were stolen from Mr. Houk, the jeweler, whose stock was displayed at the rear of Yancy's. But the perpetrator were apprehended soon after, making their getaway towards Dallas on bicycles. , James S. Daniel was elected Marshall in 1924 and remained in office until 1941. This was during a particularly exciting period in Grapevine's law enforcement history. The Grapevine Home Bank (402 So. Main) was robbed at gunpoint in 1931 by two men. Joe Stewart and Odell Chambless. The latter escaped, taking refuge with the Shumaker family south of town on the Praire and persuading Bill Shumaker to give him a ride to West Dallas. Years later, Home Bank cashier H. C. Yancey, sitting in a barber's chair in Forth Worth, was recognized by the man shaving him: "Do you remember me / I robbed you in Grapevine a few years back?" asked Odell Chambless. , A more tragic moment occurred in 1934. when two Texas motor cycle patrolmen, E. B. Wheeler and H. D. Murphy, were shot and killed on Easter Sunday by Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker on old Highway 114, just west of Grapevine in present Southlake. The patrolmen's bodies were brought to the Lucas Funeral Home on main Street, where nearly the entire town turned out to pay tribute to the fallen lawmen. Speculation was rampant as to the whereabouts of the notorious gangsters. , By 1953, when the city bought the first patrol car and began requiring Marshall A. B. Allen and night watchman to wear uniforms (only cap and badge were provide), the calaboose wasn't used much to hold prisoners. The single iron cot and the tarp thrown over the openings to keep out the chilly wind were no longer adequate to contain even the occasional inebriated citizen, so the jail fell into ruin. , In 1976, the Grapevine Historical society move the calaboose to Heritage park. In 1994, it was moved to this site within the original township to highlight its importance to Grapevine's early law enforcement history.