Atlanta
There was a one-story ironclad calaboose in the middle of Hiram Street between the addresses of 333 Hiram on the north side and 337 on the south side. It is depicted on Sheet 3 of the Sanborn maps dated 1906 and 1911.
Hughes Springs
Hughes Springs Calaboose
(Photo courtesy of the City of Hughes Springs)
On my recent trip I stopped in Hughes Springs (Cass County) and asked several locals if there was a calaboose in their town. One city worker told me that there used to be one near the RR tracks. I drove there and saw nothing. An elderly gentleman named Roy Alexander was nearby and he showed me where it stood. He recalled it as made of concrete and a metal door with bars. He said that he and his other young friends used to “pick at the prisoners.” Roy said it was still being used in the early 1960s but not for much longer.
I called City Hall when I got home and was told that there is a picture of the old calaboose on the wall. Kim Laigle sent it to me and I am very grateful. Finding a calaboose when it is not expected is special. The picture tells us that it had a metal door with bars and two small windows on one side. Since most calabooses were symmetrical in terms of the placement of windows, it is a fairly safe assumption to make that there were two windows on the other side as well. The floor was probably poured concrete and there are several scenarios that could apply to the interior. It could have been one open room or there could have been a dividing wall in the middle that created two cells. This wall might have been poured concrete with a metal door in the center or the entire divider could have been metal bars with a metal door.
The date it was constructed may never be known. The “poured in place” method of using concrete to build calabooses was most common from around 1908 to the end of calaboose construction, sometime in the 1930s or 1940s.
Queen City
A wood calaboose is depicted on the Sanborn fire insurance map as being in Queen City, Texas in 1890 (Sheet 1), 1901 (Sheet 1), and 1896 (Sheet 1). It was located on block 75 ½ on Marietta Street and facing an alley. In 1901 the block was changed to 75 and the calaboose was in the same location. It was gone in 1906.
Queen City 1890