Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Salvaged from the recent demolition of Coryell County’s fourth jail which was built in the early 1930s, was a certain cell door located in the upstairs of the facility. The special door was used to gain access to what was known as the “Bull Pen” where the male “bad guys” were kept in the early years.
The cell door, which was manufactured by the Pauly Jail Building and Manufacturing Company in St. Louis, Missouri, was unique in style since the locking process was a rotating combination lock rather than a key entry like the other cell doors. This type of lock by the Pauly company was known as a “Key-Bar Grating” mechanism that was patented in the late 1800s.
Coryell County Commissioner Ryan Basham recently shared a humorous story about the combination cell door when his grandfather, deputy Jack Fry, and highway patrolman David White were in charge of transporting an inmate from the jail’s Bull Pen to the courthouse. The pair could not get the combination dial to work on the cell door and had to call upon Sheriff Windy Cummings to come to the jail to unlock the cell door. “It was a heck of a note that they couldn’t get the door open and had to call on Sheriff Cummings to do it himself,” Basham said.
The unique combination door was recently cut from the rest of the cell block and removed during the demolition of the building. Its new home will be alongside other artifacts from previous Coryell County Jails at the Coryell Museum and Historical Center.
