Henry County Sheriff's Residence and Jail
Encyclopedia
The Henry County Sheriff's Residence and Jail is a government building in Napoleon
Napoleon, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 9,318 people, 3,813 households, and 2,470 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,668.1 people per square mile . There were 4,066 housing units at an average density of 727.9 per square mile...

, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Built in 1882 to a design by architect D.W. Gibbs, the residence-and-jail is located adjacent to the Henry County Courthouse
Henry County Courthouse (Ohio)
The Henry County Courthouse is an historic courthouse building in Napoleon, Ohio, United States. Designed in the Second Empire style, it was built in 1880 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 28, 1973.-See also:...

 in the city's downtown.

Structure

On November 9, 1879, a fire destroyed the previous Henry County Courthouse. Within three months, the county had secured the approval of the Ohio General Assembly
Ohio General Assembly
The Ohio General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Ohio. It consists of the 99-member Ohio House of Representatives and the 33-member Ohio Senate...

 to issue bonds
Municipal bond
A municipal bond is a bond issued by a city or other local government, or their agencies. Potential issuers of municipal bonds includes cities, counties, redevelopment agencies, special-purpose districts, school districts, public utility districts, publicly owned airports and seaports, and any...

 to pay for the construction of a new courthouse, sheriff's
Sheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

 house, and jail. The jail side of the resulting brick building, designed to be fireproof
Fireproofing
Fireproofing, a passive fire protection measure, refers to the act of making materials or structures more resistant to fire, or to those materials themselves, or the act of applying such materials. Applying a certification listed fireproofing system to certain structures allows these to have a...

, was built to separate male prisoners from female prisoners and young inmates from elderly inmates. Its twelve iron cells are connected by sixty feet of concrete-floored corridors. A report prepared by a state humanitarian board in 1913 observed that the building was equipped with electricity and hot and cold
Water heating
Water heating is a thermodynamic process using an energy source to heat water above its initial temperature. Typical domestic uses of hot water are for cooking, cleaning, bathing, and space heating...

 running water; maintenance of the jail and provision of food for its inmates was the responsibility of the sheriff. Some prisoners in Henry County were housed separately: many smaller jails, ranging in capacity from one cell to four cells, were maintained by the villages of the county.

End of the jail

Into the 1980s, the sheriff's house and jail retained a great degree of integrity; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 on June 24, 1981 in recognition of its architectural significance. The late 1980s saw a conversion in the building's purpose: by this time, increasing crime rates had led to overcrowding at many jails in northwestern Ohio. In early 1989, officials from five northwestern Ohio counties and the city of Toledo
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...

 agreed to create a single regional jail complex. Because Henry County was part of this consortium
Consortium
A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....

, the 1882 building ceased to be used for detention
Detention (imprisonment)
Detention is the process when a state, government or citizen lawfully holds a person by removing their freedom of liberty at that time. This can be due to criminal charges being raised against the individual as part of a prosecution or to protect a person or property...

 purposes; instead, it was converted into offices for the sheriff's department, a call center for the county's 9-1-1
9-1-1
9-1-1 is the emergency telephone number for the North American Numbering Plan .It is one of eight N11 codes.The use of this number is for emergency circumstances only, and to use it for any other purpose can be a crime.-History:In the earliest days of telephone technology, prior to the...

system, and office space for other county agencies. Today, the jail remains the location of the sheriff's office.

External links

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