Titus County's Fourth Jail
To solve the problems with the 1917 Jail, the Titus County Commissioner's Court purchased a large lot to allow for future expansion and erected a new jail and Sheriff's Office at 304 South Van Buren Avenue, on the southwest corner of South Van Buren and West Arizona Streets.
The new jail was modern in every aspect when it was built. It has two sallyports for prisoner transfer that allow up to four patrol cars to pull inside the building. Afterward the cars are inside, electric overhead doors can be closed and the prisoners securely removed from the vehicles into the jail.
In addition to manual locks, all jail doors can be opened or locked by electric locks controlled from a central control room. A closed circuit television system allows every movement in the sallyports and all areas of the jail complex to be monitored in the central control room.
Soundproof visitor's booths separate prisoners and their visitors. A glass window separates them, and they must talk to each other by telephone. No physical contact is possible, making it much harder for a visitor to sneak contraband into the jail. The new jail has its own backup power generator for use during power failures.
The Sheriff's Office was moved from the Court House to the new jail complex, consolidating all of the Sheriff's Department activities in the same building and providing new and much larger office facilities for the Sheriff and his staff. The Sheriff's department radio dispatch center is also located in the jail facility.
Several years after the new jail was built, Titus County began housing out of county and out of state prisoners. This turned out to be a quite lucrative business, and has allowed much of the jails original construction cost and several jail expansions to be paid with very little cost to Titus County taxpayers.
After the Sheriff's Department and jail moved to the new building, the 1917 jail sat vacant for several years. It was used for county records storage for a while.
When the Constables and Justices of the Peace outgrew their Court House offices, the Commissioner's Court traded the 1917 Jail to Billy Craig on March 22, 1999 in an exchange for the former Hotel Stephens property at the corner of South Madison and West First Street. That property was used to construct the Titus County Justice Center to house Constable offices and Justice of the Peace offices and court rooms.
Mr. Craig demolished the 1917 Jail to build a parking lot behind his service station.
As time permits, we will expand the historical description of the present jail.
