Old County Jail Placed On National Register

COURTESY PHOTO The old McDonald County jail is pictured during Jesse James Days 2019 in Pineville. The old jail was recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
COURTESY PHOTO The old McDonald County jail is pictured during Jesse James Days 2019 in Pineville. The old jail was recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

McDonald County's old jail has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of Interior. This comes after several years of work by the McDonald County Historical Society.

Lynn Tatum of the historical society said several members were interested in getting the old jail preserved, including herself, Gene Hall, Paul Lewis and others. In 2014, Tatum was president of the historical society, and she went to the county commissioners, who had control of the old jail, and asked them if they would approve of the historical society putting in an application to get the jail on the national register. They did, and thus began a project that would last for the next six years.

At the time, Tatum wanted to get both the old sheriff's house and the old jail on the national register. She felt the old sheriff's house was an important piece of history as well because the sheriff always lived there and his wife would cook and clean and help with the prisoners. Because the application for the national register is quite complex, the department of interior has a preliminary application, she said. She submitted the preliminary application and found out in 2014 that the chances were better for the jail alone than with the sheriff's house, so that is what the historical society pursued ever since.

Tatum and Phyllis Chancellor interviewed Lou Keeling, a longtime sheriff who was in office when the county made the move from the old jail to the new jail. He took office in 1980, and the new jail opened in 1992. When he took office, the old jail had a dirt floor, no air conditioning and a wood stove, Tatum said. There was also not adequate space for women -- the prisoners were all crowded into one small room.

"When it opened, it was touted as the finest jail in southwest Missouri. The walls are 18 inches thick. It's a fortress. It has steel jail cells that were purchased from a company in St. Louis," she said. "It was state-of-the-art when it was built in 1904, but this was 1980, and the department of corrections had filed a report and said they needed a new jail."

Next, Chancellor interviewed Zella Mae Colle, Tatum said, who was the wife of Earl Spears, who was sheriff from 1964 to 1976 and the last sheriff to live in the old sheriff's house.

Tatum had some challenges at home with her husband's health and Kathy Underwood took over leadership of the application process.

Tatum noted that, while anyone can prepare an application, this work is normally done by historians and historic preservation consultants. The team from the historical society had great support from the state preservation office, she said. Their consultant there was Jacob Morris.

Months of research followed.

Tatum noted, "What they're looking for is not only the landmark identification but also people who do a lot of research so the history around the site becomes documented."

She said they ended up doing a lot of research on the history of law enforcement in McDonald County and what prompted the establishment of the jail. They learned that, when the county was established in 1849, two towns fought to be the county seat -- Maryville, later called Pineville, and Rutledge, later called Elk Springs. The dispute went on for eight years until the state had to step in and declare Pineville the county seat because it was geographically closest to the center of the county. This only came after three men were killed in a saloon fight over the issue.

After this, a dungeon-type log jail with an entrance at the top was moved from Rutledge to Pineville. It was used for 31 years until escaping prisoners burned it down in 1888.

Between then and 1904, the county did not have a jail, Tatum said. Prisoners were taken to neighboring jails. There was a lot of lawlessness, she said.

After failing to pass in a few elections, a new jail passed in the election of 1902. It went under construction in 1903 and opened in 1904. It cost $4,000.

"Walker Woodard was the first to be incarcerated for maiming cattle by cutting off their tails," Tatum said.

On July 24, the historical society was notified that the Department of Interior had approved the old jail for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. Tatum said the building will have a nice bronze plaque and will be preserved for future generations to enjoy. She said the jail will not be open to the public. The building, which now has heat and air, is a storehouse for important documents. However, she said, the historical society hopes to put up an exhibit and open the front room on special occasions by next summer.

"Several criteria were met in this application," she said. "First, this is a building that represents a major pattern of American history, almost a century of law enforcement in a rural Ozark county. Second, it remains on its original site, the "jail lot" southeast of the historic courthouse. Finally, it retains its building integrity as it was originally constructed in 1904 with its fortress-like stone walls, iron bars on windows and original iron jail cells."

She added, "I'm ecstatic. I'm so proud of the historical society for hanging in and making it happen and inspiring us to work. I'm grateful for people like Kathy Underwood and Gene Hall and Paul Lewis and Phyllis Chancellor. It was a team effort, and I'm thankful that a group of people could come together and make it happen with the support of the entire board and members. And the county commissioners -- we could not have done it without them. This county has been very, very supportive of our work. They're our inspiration."

The old jail joins two other McDonald County historic landmarks on the national register. The other two are the iron bridge at Powell and the historic courthouse on the square in Pineville.