October 11, 2016

From 1881 until the 1930s or ‘40s, the two cells in the rear of Old City Hall were used as the town’s drunk tank. Some time around 1940, the City built a small jail alongside Old City Hall. The shed between the two buildings was the Public Works Department. When a new Public Works building was completed at the west end of C Street, the shed was torn off, but the now unused jail continued as public works storage. Around 1985, the City Council had the jail torn down to make way for the current parking lot, but the old cell bars can be found leaning against an oak tree in Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery. (Courtesy of Jacksonville Historian, Larry Smith)