Old Liberty County Jail
While this building was not Liberty County's first jail, it served longer than any previous jail. When in was built in 1892 the jail had "all the modern improvements and conveniences of a first class prison." Eighty years later it was condemned by Georgia Governor Lester Maddox as "a rotten, filthy rathole."
Although there is not record of its construction or its architect, it is known that the contractor, a Mr. Parkhill, had completed the two-story, three-bay brick structure by October 1892.
The interior of the jail is divided by a brick wall into two sections housing a bull-pen (or drunk tank) and two cells downstairs and two cells and the upper part of the bull-pen upstairs.
A new county jail was opened in 1969 and the Old Jail was sold at auction on March 3, 1970 to the Liberty County Historical Society, which eventually donated the building to the City of Hinesville. The Old Jail is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Marker is on South Main Street (Loop Georgia Route 138) south of Bagley Avenue, on the right when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
