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Featured Listener Comments Section: Contents List |
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Listener: Jack Kyle
Category: General
Date: 12 Aug 2009
Time: 09:42:56 -0700
Remote Name: 66.140.105.214
Robert,
I want to thank you for the opportunity to tour the new jail. The old jail has been a big part of Lubbock’s history and my life, but I know it has outlived its usefulness. The changes in this new facility are so far removed from the way things were in the old section of the jail during the 50’s, and even in the new section that was added in the 80’s, that I find it hard to believe that the old system ever existed.
My parents moved to Lubbock in 1947 when I was 8 yrs old and my mother worked at the Hot Shot Cafe across the street from the jail on Main Street for 32 years. As a young man I received a close-up and personal introduction to the inside of the jail when I took a brief walk on the wild side. Grady Harris was sheriff at the time. In the old jail there were four tanks to a floor with four cells in each tank. Each cell held four prisoners. All of the cells were on the outside perimeter of each floor with a walkway between the cells and the outside windows. The heaters were all out in the walkways and it could get pretty warm when they were turned up. There was no air conditioner. A guard would come by in the morning and ask if you wanted one or more of the windows opened. If you asked for the windows to be opened they would probably stay that way until the next morning. You either burned up or froze.
There were no guards on the floors at that time and it was hard to get anyone to come upstairs unless you really made a lot of noise. If you did, you had better have a good reason. There was not any system of communication between the floors and the offices downstairs and there was a lot of prisoner-on-prisoner abuse. The cells were controlled by the most cunning with the aid of the meanest. If you came in with money downstairs you could buy respect. I was made foreman of the jury. Everyone that came into one of the 16 men tanks was tried and found guilty. The convicted could either buy cigarettes or candy for everyone or be assigned to work details. If the work was not satisfactory, punishment was inflicted.
Prisoners received only two meals a day at that time, breakfast and supper. Prisoners received one cup of coffee with breakfast but nothing was given to drink with the evening meal. If you were lucky enough to retrieve and keep an empty Bab-O can , you could get water out of the sink to drink. I did learn to love liver because that was the only whole meat I ever received. A lot of things have changed and it is all for the best.
Fourteen years later in 1975, I became a volunteer minister at the Lubbock County Jail and continued in that position for 30 years until 2005. In 1976, Clyde Thompson, once considered the most unmanageable man in the Texas penal system, came to Lubbock to work in our jail ministry. Working with Clyde and hearing his life story, I came to believe that if Clyde could change there was hope for anyone. Clyde passed away in 1979.
I was very lucky because there were a lot of people who could see more in me than I could see in myself, and Judge Bean scared the devil out of me. That is another story.
I am going to email you a picture of Gene Autry sitting on his horse in front of the old jail. It was taken by my mother or her sister in the late 40’s or early 50’s when he was here for the ABC Rodeo. He came here several times.
Thanks
Jack Kyle
Gene Autry outside the Lubbock Co. Jail, photo
provided by Jack Kyle, ©Jack Kyle/Pratt on Texas
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