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The Old Jail
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Another defining building of Downtown Evansville is the Old Jail. Built in 1890 and designed by Henry Wolters who also designed the Old Courthouse. It is a Gothic Revival building modeled after the Castle of Lichtenstein. It was remodeled in 1937 and eventually closed in the late 1960's when the Civic Center was built. It was used as a haunted house for several years until the late 80's/early 90's when it stopped. Other than that it was mostly abandoned. In the mid 1990's, it was remodeled again, but this time for office space. Now it is currently occupied by Woods and Woods, a lawyer firm. One of the Woods brothers was nice enough to show me around and let me go through the Tunnel. I don't have many internal shots because most of the inside was pretty modern with the exception of the steel doors they kept, which was cool.
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| The side that faces the Courthouse. |
They also kept one cell intact and original bars on the outside windows. When they remodeled it they knew they would have to change the inside, but they really made extra efforts to keep the outside the same. When they did remodel it, they found a chamber that still had coal in it from the 1910's. Here are some pics of the building. I only wish I could have gotten in there pre-restoration.
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| Parking lot shot. | A farther off shot taken from inside the Courthouse. | A far off shot. |
Right when you walk into the door the first thing you see is the cell. It was very small and held eight people. I could only imagine how bad that must have been and to think they were still using it until the 60's.
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| A welcoming site. | Steel beds. | The tiny lavatory at the end. Just think if you slept on one of these beds. |
The people who remodeled it kept all the bars from the cells in case the tenants ever want to use them. They are still remodeling some parts. Mr. Woods showed me the floor where the cells were and such and told me what is currently being done. It's a neat place to check out and a well done job on the remodeling. It was here the I accessed the Tunnel.
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