Jackson County Jail and Marshal’s House

A wide variety of sites consisting of landmarks, river crossings, other natural features, and man-made structures that have all been designated as historic by the National Park Service exist along the Santa Fe Trail. Among these historical sites, located in Independence, Missouri, stands the second incarnation of the Jackson County Jail and Marshal’s House. Not just an interesting architectural structure, the Jail and Marshal’s House was an outpost of law and order on the Santa Fe Trail. For those traveling westward, the jail would have been near the beginning of the journey and therefore one of the last reminders of law and government before venturing across the plains. For those traveling eastward, however, it would have marked a person’s reintegration into eastern society and its social mores. The jail symbolized many different things to those traveling on the Santa Fe Trail.

History and Location

Located near the easternmost point of the Santa Fe Trail, the town of Independence, Missouri, grew exponentially during the height of the trail’s use. It became a large outfitting post and operation center for caravans of individual travelers and entire families heading west. As historian Merrill Mattes writes, “Independence was established in 1827 to succeed old Franklin and Arrow Rock farther downriver as the main depot of the Santa Fe trade” and was considered “‘very different,’ with a scattering of ‘low and mean’ houses composed of logs and clay.”¹ Originally built as a log structure in 1827, the first Jackson County Jail building burned to the ground and was replaced with a more modern brick structure in 1859; it is this version of the building which stands today.

Purpose

The Jackson County Jail and Marshal’s House served many purposes during the height of the Santa Fe Trail. Along with being a private residence (for the jailer and his family) and a fully functioning jail, it also served as the home office of the county sheriff and marshal. This jail was central to all law enforcement officials in the Missouri area and, due to the slow rate of communication and the (in)ability of law enforcement officials to respond in a timely manner, one can imagine that the closer one lived to the city of Independence the more likely a person could seek, expect, and receive justice. The jail was originally built to house people who broke laws, some of which sound familiar to those we follow today, such as horse racing on public streets, firing guns in town, operating a gaming house, disturbing the peace, disturbing a religious meeting, and assault and battery. Others, we might find humorous today like building a toilet without the proper pit beneath it.² However, during the Civil War, the jail served a different function, one which revealed the allegiance of the town of Independence. The jail served as housing for Confederate prisoners of war as well as individuals who refused to sign the Union’s Oath of Loyalty or follow the Union Army’s issue of General Order No. 11 in which residents were forced from any home or town that were designated battle zones; those who failed to comply were all thrown in and locked together inside of the jail.

The law enforcement official enforcing these laws was known as a marshal and it was usually a position held by a person of some wealth and power. The marshal acted as spokesperson for the jail, overseeing its big-picture functions; during the Civil War, the marshal became more of a military officer called a provost marshal. A person commonly referred to as a jailer was paid $50 a month along with free room and board for himself and his family to live in the same structure of the jail.³ The jailer and his family were responsible for the maintenance of the jail as well as for the security of the prisoners and for the jail itself, as it was common place or expected that the jailer’s wife would cook food and feed the prisoners along with her own family.

Architecture and Floor Plan

The architectural style of the Jackson County Jail and Marshal’s House illustrates the evolution of prison design in the 19th century. The original log structure proved inadequate for housing prisoners. Once, after becoming so infested with ticks and other similar parasites, the log structure had to be cleared out while officials could run a herd of sheep through the jail in an attempt to remove the bugs.⁴ The log building could not keep the bugs out nor did it provide adequate shelter or protection for the inmates from the elements as evident by the large number of inmate deaths reported from exposure. Thus, when the jail was rebuilt in 1859, it was built with brick, a major upgrade.

The new structure was also built with a very interesting feature: the marshal’s parlor, the jailer, and the jailer’s family shared one connected building with the jail. There were two different doors placed at the front of the two story building on opposite sides with one being used for official jail business and the other being used by the family which perhaps gave those living there a sense that they did not live in a jail or reside with criminals. Even though the family lived to one side of the building with the jail on the other side, there was still some overlap between the two. Even with the multiple front doors attempting to give the illusion of completely separate areas, the family area at the front of the building and the jail located at the rear, there was only one kitchen designed to support both.

The cells are located at the back of the jail with six rooms on the bottom floor and another six rooms mirrored on the top floor. Each cell was given a small iron grated window that allowed for airflow from the outside in to the cells. The cells were secured with two iron doors and the inner door was grated with the outer to make one solid piece. Each cell was made up of two-foot thick limestone blocks which gave no protection from the cold and the only heat and light source was a single candle placed out of the cells in the center of the hallway. Each cell was designed to hold three, so–if only half of the cells were full–then the jailer, his wife, and their children would be living alongside 18 criminals. During the Civil War, though, regulations or expectations of prisoner management changed, and as many as 20 Confederate prisoners of war crammed into each cell at one time; this would have meant hundreds of prisoners for the jailer and his family to look after.

The Most Famous and Other Well-Known Prisoners

Throughout the jail’s century of use there were thousands of prisoners housed, with only a few of note. Among these, there is one that most even in our time would be able to recognize, if less for his actions than for those of his kin—-Frank James. Frank was the older brother and fellow accomplice of the famous bank and railroad robbing Jesse James, a regular presence along the Santa Fe Trail. Frank’s cell remains in the jail today intact and preserved in the same condition as it was in when he was living there. As a result of his celebrity status, Frank was given free run of the entire jail along with a fully furnished cell of imported rugs from Brussels, fine furniture, paintings, and beddings; he was also allowed to have visitors and host card games in his cell at night (Jackson and Kirkman, 2012). Another well-known prisoner in his day was Confederate guerilla leader William Clarke Quantrill who was briefly incarcerated at the Jackson County Jail. Quantrill was the leader of the Quantrill Raiders, a Confederate guerilla group, who attacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas in what is known as the Lawrence Massacre.

The Jail’s Lasting Legacy: Then and Now

While today Independence is “for all visible purposes. . . a suburb of Kansas City,” one of the “only tangible links with the past” is the “restored Jackson County Jail and Marshal’s House, of 1859 vintage.”⁵ Even after the jail was rebuilt a second time it was continuously renovated to serve the needs of the surrounding communities, like in 1907 when another smaller brick structure was added to the rear of the building in order to add more cells for the housing and confinement of chain gangs who worked on the roads, sewers and other similarly natured projects for the surrounding town and city.⁶ A few years after being decommissioned, the building was turned into a museum with some areas inside the structure becoming frozen in time (like Frank James’ cell). In 1959, former President Harry S. Truman–former resident, lawyer, and judge in Independence–personally halted the destruction of the jail. A part of the National Register of Historic Places since 1970, the jail and its connection to the Santa Fe Trail will be preserved in perpetuity.

Bibliography

• Gilbert, Bil. Westering Man: The Life of Joseph Walker. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985.

• Jackson, David W. and Paul Kirkman. Lock Down: Outlaws, Lawmen, and Frontier Justice in Jackson County, Missouri. Independence, MO: Jackson County Historical Society, 2012.

• Mattes, Merrill J. The Great Platte River Road: The Covered Wagon Mainline via Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1987.

1950 words.