HOUSTON MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCE AT SUGAR LAND
(Formerly the Central Prison Dormitory)
Face of a Repurposed Structure - FACES Monthly Challenge and ARCHITECTURE Weekly Challenge #49

The abolition of slavery necessitated a new labor system for Sugar Land, after the Civil War.
Unlike Louisiana, where most of the sugar plantations were worked by wage labor, Sugar Land, Texas relied on the
convict lease system. In 1882 twelve of the eighteen Texas sugar plantations utilized 800, or more than one-third, of the state's prison inmates.
The cost per worker actually exceeded the prevailing wage scale, but the labor force, as under slavery, was constant and guaranteed.

In 2009, this structure was repurposed. No longer is the former dormitory for the Central State Farm Prison a place of confinement.
The “Greek Revival” structure, built in 1939, has become a cultural destination of choice that houses frogs, minerals, a planetarium,
and Sugar Land’s own Tyrannosaurus Rex.