Binky
05-22-2005, 01:21 PM
RAYMONDVILLE -- A thick steel ring hovers over the top of a trap door in the musty third floor of the Willacy County Courthouse.
"They never hung anyone there," Lloyd Oberg, 77, said of the gallows whose trap door was fused shut years ago.
A year after the courthouse was built, Texas banned hangings, unveiling the electric chair in Huntsville.
Like the cold bars of the cellblock, the graffiti on the walls helps tell the story of the old Willacy County Jail.
"That jail isn't welded in, it's riveted in -- it's almost like drilling it in," said Sheriff Larry Spence, who worked there as a deputy. "It's a lot of heavy steel. All I know is that it's solid."
Built in 1922, the brick courthouse was constructed in classical revival design for $75,000.
The courthouse "will satisfy the wants of Willacy County for the next half century," the Willacy County News wrote on Oct. 27, 1921.
Today, it stands like a monument to the days when the county's rich, sandy soil spawned a sprawling farming industry.
Before its front steps stands a granite war memorial etched with the names of area soldiers who died in World Wars I and II and Vietnam.
"It means a small community doesn't forget. It was not in vain," said Lefty Cavazos, who served as an Army sergeant in Operation Desert Storm. "One feels proud when one drives by there."
After the mid-1900s, cement blocks covered the courthouse's old windows.
The county used local money to give the facade a facelift in the mid-1990s, County Judge Simon Salinas said.
"It was all boarded up. It
looked like a barn," said Oberg, who worked as a sheriff's deputy in the mid-1950s. "They painted it and dressed it up and made it look like the original."
At the top of the courthouse steps, chipped bricks prop open the double glass doors.
The small lobby leads to the county clerk's office, which shares the first floor with the offices of the treasurer and auditor.
On the second floor, the cement stairway leads to the district attorney's office and the cramped district clerk's office.
"It's like a vault," District Clerk Gilbert Lozano said of the small office built to store records.
Down the hallway, old wooden doors open into the courtroom, a wide room where tall windows touch the high ceiling.
"There used to be a cat walk all the way around and armed guards were present when court was going on," Lozano said as he pointed halfway up the walls.
On one end of the courtroom, the old judge's bench stands below two rows of jury boxes. On the other side, 14 long wooden benches stand in two rows. Most likely the courthouse's original benches, they stand splintered, scarred with graffiti.
"It sometimes feels embarrassing," Lozano said of the deeply carved marks. "But everything here is so old that I'm not surprised there's all this graffiti."
A concrete stairway leads to the third floor, which housed the Willacy County Jail until 1976.
Old leather-bound ledgers are stacked high near the old cellblock.
"Look at all this history," District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra said.
From the top of a stack of tall worn books, Guerra opened thick pages to the case of Benigno Martinez, who was sentenced to three years in prison for "unlawful transporting of intoxicating liquor" on Aug. 18, 1930.
In the following entry, Guerra pointed to the case of O.L. Morrow, who was sentenced to two years for murder on Jan. 30, 1931.
"You are literally going back into the 1930s and reading the history of the cases being presented and the composition of the jury," Guerra said. "We found most of the time the juries were all Anglo and the defendant was Hispanic."
In the old cellblock, graffiti lines the thick walls.
When he remodeled part of the floor in 1999, Guerra enshrined a prisoner's painting of the Virgin Mary in a wooden case.
"It's La Virgen de Guadalupe," he said of Mexico's patron saint. "As a Catholic, I couldn't get myself to cover her and it appears the painting has been there for many, many years. It symbolizes the faith the prisoners had to help them survive their time in jail."
In the graffiti, prisoners told bits of their stories.
In the old cellblock, a swastika and a peace sign share the wall with a painting of a marijuana leaf.
"El Jimmy Freeman from Lyford to prison for five years to Huntsville prison," Lozano read from the walls. "Joe L. Alamillo to jail for 120 days de Lyford, Tx."
Scrawled dates trace the graffiti to as late as September 1976, when the cellblock was shut down.
"Nobody ever got out of there," Oberg said, boasting that no prisoner escaped from the jail.
"That cell block was built to stay there," he said.
http://www.valleystar.com/letters.php
Website: http://www.valleystar.com/
Webpage: http://www.valleystar.com/localnews_more.p...
"They never hung anyone there," Lloyd Oberg, 77, said of the gallows whose trap door was fused shut years ago.
A year after the courthouse was built, Texas banned hangings, unveiling the electric chair in Huntsville.
Like the cold bars of the cellblock, the graffiti on the walls helps tell the story of the old Willacy County Jail.
"That jail isn't welded in, it's riveted in -- it's almost like drilling it in," said Sheriff Larry Spence, who worked there as a deputy. "It's a lot of heavy steel. All I know is that it's solid."
Built in 1922, the brick courthouse was constructed in classical revival design for $75,000.
The courthouse "will satisfy the wants of Willacy County for the next half century," the Willacy County News wrote on Oct. 27, 1921.
Today, it stands like a monument to the days when the county's rich, sandy soil spawned a sprawling farming industry.
Before its front steps stands a granite war memorial etched with the names of area soldiers who died in World Wars I and II and Vietnam.
"It means a small community doesn't forget. It was not in vain," said Lefty Cavazos, who served as an Army sergeant in Operation Desert Storm. "One feels proud when one drives by there."
After the mid-1900s, cement blocks covered the courthouse's old windows.
The county used local money to give the facade a facelift in the mid-1990s, County Judge Simon Salinas said.
"It was all boarded up. It
looked like a barn," said Oberg, who worked as a sheriff's deputy in the mid-1950s. "They painted it and dressed it up and made it look like the original."
At the top of the courthouse steps, chipped bricks prop open the double glass doors.
The small lobby leads to the county clerk's office, which shares the first floor with the offices of the treasurer and auditor.
On the second floor, the cement stairway leads to the district attorney's office and the cramped district clerk's office.
"It's like a vault," District Clerk Gilbert Lozano said of the small office built to store records.
Down the hallway, old wooden doors open into the courtroom, a wide room where tall windows touch the high ceiling.
"There used to be a cat walk all the way around and armed guards were present when court was going on," Lozano said as he pointed halfway up the walls.
On one end of the courtroom, the old judge's bench stands below two rows of jury boxes. On the other side, 14 long wooden benches stand in two rows. Most likely the courthouse's original benches, they stand splintered, scarred with graffiti.
"It sometimes feels embarrassing," Lozano said of the deeply carved marks. "But everything here is so old that I'm not surprised there's all this graffiti."
A concrete stairway leads to the third floor, which housed the Willacy County Jail until 1976.
Old leather-bound ledgers are stacked high near the old cellblock.
"Look at all this history," District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra said.
From the top of a stack of tall worn books, Guerra opened thick pages to the case of Benigno Martinez, who was sentenced to three years in prison for "unlawful transporting of intoxicating liquor" on Aug. 18, 1930.
In the following entry, Guerra pointed to the case of O.L. Morrow, who was sentenced to two years for murder on Jan. 30, 1931.
"You are literally going back into the 1930s and reading the history of the cases being presented and the composition of the jury," Guerra said. "We found most of the time the juries were all Anglo and the defendant was Hispanic."
In the old cellblock, graffiti lines the thick walls.
When he remodeled part of the floor in 1999, Guerra enshrined a prisoner's painting of the Virgin Mary in a wooden case.
"It's La Virgen de Guadalupe," he said of Mexico's patron saint. "As a Catholic, I couldn't get myself to cover her and it appears the painting has been there for many, many years. It symbolizes the faith the prisoners had to help them survive their time in jail."
In the graffiti, prisoners told bits of their stories.
In the old cellblock, a swastika and a peace sign share the wall with a painting of a marijuana leaf.
"El Jimmy Freeman from Lyford to prison for five years to Huntsville prison," Lozano read from the walls. "Joe L. Alamillo to jail for 120 days de Lyford, Tx."
Scrawled dates trace the graffiti to as late as September 1976, when the cellblock was shut down.
"Nobody ever got out of there," Oberg said, boasting that no prisoner escaped from the jail.
"That cell block was built to stay there," he said.
http://www.valleystar.com/letters.php
Website: http://www.valleystar.com/
Webpage: http://www.valleystar.com/localnews_more.p...