Richmond Jail 1897
In November of 1896, L.T. Noyes, a Houston contractor and agent for Diebold Safe and Lock Company of Canton, Ohio, was awarded an $18 thousand contract to build
a jail which would include sheriff's living quarters. Built of red brick and McNeal limestone, the interior and exterior red clay and mortar walls carry the load of
concrete floors, although the sheriff's living quarters on the first floor had conventional wood deck and joist flooring.
Food, often prepared by the sheriff's wife, was passed through a small metal door into the foyer area, to be taken up to the prisoners. Persons going to the second floor
passed through an iron gate before ascending the curved narrow stairway. Instead of bars, iron lattice-work covered the inside of windows and formed cells.
In the center section were more cells and the gallows. Individual cells and areas for solitary confinement were on the second and third floors.
This was the Fort Bend County Jail until another one was built in 1955.