“The Old Liberty County Jail is a significant example of a late 19th-century jail for an agricultural county and a small, but growing, community in Georgia. It is one of the earliest brick structures in Hinesville and probably in Liberty County.
“From the point of view of construction technology, the building reflects the then-current design ideas for penal structures. Building materials promoted low maintenance and durability of the structure itself, as well as the security of prison inmates. The jail is a modest reflection of the same construction principles found in larger jail structures of the same period throughout Georgia.”
“The jail embodies the principles and conditions of incarnation prevalent at the turn of the 20th century. Due to the integrity of the structure and its setting, the social and humanitarian attitudes of its period are readily tangible today. Prisoner’s graffiti from the 1960s and early 1970s remains on several cell walls and may reveal information important to that period.” Quoted from “Proposed Guidelines For Restoration” – Suzanne Johnson- March 1990
“The building is also significant in that, as a result of a jail of this sort, prisoner’s rights, privilege, and living condition have become more humans.”
The jail is currently an art gallery.
(Click each picture to enlarge)
“Timeline:
- 1892: Brick Jail was completed, replacing a one-story wooden jail. The architect of the Old Liberty County Jail is unknown, but the contractor was a man by the name of Mr.Parkhill.
- 1940: Plumbing was installed circa 1940. The original tin roof was replaced with Ludowici tile and then with a standing-seam sheet roof. The original hipped-roof portico was removed and replaced with a flat entry roof in 1941. It’s speculated that it was at this time that the interior was renovated or updated to the iron-clad interior that exists now.
- 1941: The remodeling of the interior separated the front section into two floors, creating a jailer’s office and two female cells on the first floor; and a large padded cell, plus two more female cells, on the second floor. The two male cells in the second bay of the jail were removed and replaced with what appears to be a prefabricated steel prison cell system that resembles a two-story cage.
- 1960: The brick exterior of the jail was periodically white-washed and sometime in the 1960s, the jail was painted white.
- 1969: Georgia Governor Lester Maddox pointed out he need for a new jail calling it “a rotten, filthy rathole.”
- 1970: Shortly before the completion of the new regional prison facility, there was a jailbreak. A male prisoner punched through the rusted metal ceiling above the cell and subsequently escaped through the roof of the jail. On March 3, 1970, the Old Liberty County Jail was auctioned off and purchased by the Liberty County Historical Society for $4,500. Shortly after acquiring the jail, the group attempted to return the exterior of the structure to its unpainted brick facade by sandblasting.
- 1991: The city of Hinesville acquired the structure as a donation from the Liberty County Historical Society in October 1991 and has kept up its maintenance.
- 1992: Placed on the National Register of Historic Places. (All quoted from the pamphlet I received upon my visit.”
-Proposed Guidelines For Restoration Suzanne Johnson- March 1990
