Henry County Sheriff's Residence and Jail
About this property
The Henry County Sheriff's Residence and Jail is a government building in Napoleon, Ohio, United States. Built in 1882 to a design by architect D.W. Gibbs, the residence-and-jail is located adjacent to the Henry County Courthouse in the city's downtown. 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 to issue bonds to pay for the construction of a new courthouse, sheriff's house, and jail. The jail side of the resulting brick building, designed to be fireproof, 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 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. 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 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 agreed to create a single regional jail complex. Because Henry County was part of this consortium, the 1882 building ceased to be used for detention purposes; instead, it was converted into offices for the sheriff's department, a call center for the county's 9-1-1 system, and office space for other county agencies. Today, the jail remains the location of the sheriff's office.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Henry County Sheriff's Residence and Jail listed on the National Register?
Henry County Sheriff's Residence and Jail was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 23, 1981.
What type of historic resource is Henry County Sheriff's Residence and Jail?
Henry County Sheriff's Residence and Jail is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Henry County Sheriff's Residence and Jail?
The period of significance for Henry County Sheriff's Residence and Jail is recorded as the industrial era.
Can I research the history near Henry County Sheriff's Residence and Jail?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Henry County Sheriff's Residence and Jail will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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