Comstock Historical Maker No. 17

— Courthouse South B Street, Virginia City, NV —

This two-story jail was completed in 1877, and featured ten individual cells, each of which had bunk beds and "state of the art" plumbing for the day. Women were housed on the second level and men on the first floor until 1963, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that males and females could not occupy the same facility without being physically separated. There was heavy wire mesh strung between the posts of the second level to prevent falls and mingling of inmates.

The jail operated continuously from 1877 until September of 1986, when the county's insurance carrier decided it was unwise to operate it with only one exit in the event of fire. Inmates were housed at the Carson City Sheriff's Jail, for a fee, until the current jail was opened in 1992 on the outskirts of town on the "Truck Route - SR341".

The walls of the jail were covered in boiler plate, after a successful escape in 1897 by an alleged murderer who had worked on the building as a bricklayer. "Red Mike" Langan knew the walls had not been properly filled with rubble material as required, and was able to dig his way out and escape. The county went to great expense to see that this did not happen again.

The doors of the jail were built C.F. Nutting of San Francisco, the same company that supplied all the vaults in the rest of the courthouse. The stone floors are made of "Kate's Peak Andesite," a very dense and heavy granite which was quarried from the hills a short distance to the east of Virginia City.

This marker sponsored by Bruce & Linda Larson of Virginia City, Nevada who both retired from the Storey County Sheriff's Office and worked in this jail.

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Show me all markers in:  Virginia City, NV  |  Storey County  |  89440  |  Nevada  |  United States of America

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The Great Fire of 1875
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Founders of Julia C. Bulette Chapter
Virginia City

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