'Old jail a lot like Mayberry' by Jeanne Williams/Temple Daily Telegram

                       Old jail a lot like Mayberry
                                by Jeanne Williams
                    Temple Daily Telegram - January 26, 2009

Retired state District Judge William C. Black of Temple
stands in front of the old Milam County Jail turned Milam
County Historical Museum. Black’s father, Carl Black,
was a longtime Milam County sheriff and his family lived
on the first floor of the building that housed prisoners
upstairs. (Shirley Williams/Telegram)

CAMERON - One dark and lonely night, a Milam County inmate jailed inside the fortress-style, 1895-era county calaboose decided it was time to go home.

The earlier discovery of loose bars in a cell window from a previous escape provided the key to his exit. He squeezed through a second-floor window onto the front porch of the sheriff’s first-floor living quarters, and shinnied down the drainpipe.

Alone inside the jail’s living quarters, Mary Black, wife of Sheriff Carl Black, heard the racket, wrangled unsuccessfully to slip off the scabbard from her husband’s shotgun, and ran outside in her nightgown, robe and slippers to confront the escapee. The man tried to run, tripped and fell. Mrs. Black grabbed the barrel end of the firearm, swung it at the inmate and missed. The man ran down the railroad tracks into the darkness.

When Sheriff Black returned and learned of the escape, he drove to the man’s house and recaptured him. Another inmate’s brief flight to freedom via loose window bars ended when he tumbled onto a chinaberry tree stump after his improvised blanket “rope” slipped.

On a recent visit to Cameron, retired District Judge William C. Black of Temple toured the grounds of the antique county jail turned Milam County Historical Museum, pointing out windows where the bars, bent during escape attempts, were reset and welded. Judge Black graduated from high school the year his father Carl took office as sheriff, a post he held 32 years. Sheriff Black, considered a legendary law officer, was respected for honesty, fair treatment of lawbreakers and bravery.

The Black family resided in the jail living quarters, and Judge Black spent the night there on visits home. Though the Black family was not afraid to live in the county jail, they often had non-violent encounters with prisoners.

Town drunks worked out a system with Sheriff Black where they surrendered at the county jail and were locked up to sleep it off, Judge Black said, adding, “I can really relate to the Mayberry jail.”

Judge Black, visiting his family while in the Navy, answered the door one day to a man who slurred, “I’m drunk. Lock me up.”

Charles King, Milam County Historical Museum director, points out a repair hole in the jail wall from a daring escape attempt.

“I don’t know how they did it,” King said. “I can’t see them digging their way through a solid 18-inch thick wall with a spoon, but they dug a hole in the wall and slipped through the hole.”

Climbing down the wall on a makeshift rope, the escapees were confronted at the bottom by Sheriff Black wielding a shotgun. He made them climb back up the rope and back into the jail, King said.

“I don’t know of any escapes that would be noteworthy,” Judge Black said. “They didn’t escape much. We didn’t have a whole lot of serious crimes and the people had local family ties. Where were they going to go?”

Built in 1846, the first Milam County jail is described by accounts as a double-walled log dungeon where inmates were admitted via a ladder to an underground chamber, and locked in under a heavy trap door.

The 1898 book, “History of Texas,” described the interior as “bomb proof against assaults from without and within.”

One inmate set fire to the log walls and escaped. Another prisoner fled supposedly with outside help; and a third jumped on a horse and galloped away after his wife threw her shawl over the jailer’s head and held him until her husband’s getaway was certain.

By 1875, Milam County lawbreakers were cloistered behind brick walls and iron bars.

The $8,000 price tag included $2,000 on iron fixtures alone. The jail boasted double brick walls and double doors. Inmates were kept inside a square iron cage divided into compartments, and surrounded by a walkway to permit guards to pass around the enclosure.

“The heavy walls, 2-inch iron barred cages and ponderous doors constitute one of the best and most secure prisons in the state,” The Galveston Daily News reported. Three years later a trio of killers and a horse thief escaped by cutting through the cage and crawling through the sewer.

A decade later, the red brick fortress-style jail - that served Milam County until 1974 - was in operation. Inmates eventually identified its weaknesses, and in August 1901, two women being held for robbery escaped their cells and climbed up through the hanging tower window to the roof, where they attached a rope of quilts tied together.

One woman descended to the ground, but the other “got scared and got back on the roof,” a newspaper reported. The jail cook heard noises on the roof and summoned the jailer, who recaptured the woman on the roof and located the other woman at the Cameron depot so drunk she could hardly walk.

In November 1901, a horse thief, state convict, thief and poisoner - who left a note to their warden - broke a steel bar from a washtub, and used the improvised tool to pry off the door of a smaller cell.

Using this door as a lever, they pried bars of the steel cage until two of them were bent so they could crawl out. They dug bricks from under the windowsill and tied together three blankets to use as a rope and let themselves to the ground.

Sheriff L.L. Blaylock also was the recipient of a goodbye note. An inmate apologized to Blaylock for the escape because “you’ve been so kind to me, but I’ll be back.”

Former Milam County Sheriff Charlie West, who served as a lawman from 1977 to 2008, said two jail escapes occurred during his tenure, the first with dire consequences.

Joe Earl Huffman of Temple, arrested in a Nov. 14, 1979, supermarket robbery, overpowered a Milam County jailer Dec. 22 and fled, later shooting security guard Odie Sapp at Royal Seating Corp. Huffman was apprehended, convicted of murder and sentenced to 80 years in prison stacked with a life sentence for armed robbery.

In 1989, Henry Matthew Sheppard, 20, of Thorndale, in jail for kidnapping after running off with his 12-year-old girlfriend, escaped from jail during a winter storm with plans to run off with the underaged bride-to-be.

Sheriff David Greene said no escape attempts have occurred in the Milam County Law Enforcement Center.

William C. Black in front of old Milam County, TX jail

All articles from the Temple Daily Telegram are published with the permission of the
Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jeanne Williams and the Temple Daily Telegram
Photos by Shirley Williams -
Temple Daily Telegram photographer