April 6, 2013 (by Bill Moore)

Most of my work today consisted of adding calabooses to the website that I have visited.  I wrote part of what I think defines a calaboose.  It is important to remember that any jail can be referred to as a calaboose but historically only the tiny ones have been so called.  When I look at the Sanborn maps and document past and present jails I use the terms on the maps.  I have found that not one county jail so far has been referred to as a calaboose.  With very few exceptions, a calaboose is very small and only one story.  Other names include lockup and jail.  At the beginning of this project I thought that the calaboose was a feature restricted to small towns, usually unincorporated.  That is not the case.  It was not uncommon for a calaboose (labelled as such on the maps) to have been constructed in a county seat.  Sometimes, they preceded the formal county jail and probably served as an interim lockup until the big jail could be built.  Other times, they co-existed with the county jail.  Possibly, there was still a need for a small lockup as well as the big jail.  The range in size of those buildings that I have included as a calaboose is about 72 square feet to over 400 square feet.  The larger examples have multiple cells.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *