Old Lavaca County Jail Halletsville, Texas

This Jail was built in 1885.  It was a working jail until 2005. 

It had some upgrades throughout the years the most notable in 1976 when the down stairs was modified and they added newer cells.  This addition was to house the female inmates. 

The jail suffered 2 floods, the first one was on June 30th, 1940.  The water rose 8 feet on the bottom floor of the jail.  In this flood no inmates were harmed as they were all moved upstairs in the jail.  Seven people from town died in this flood, when their houses were washed down the river.  

Then another flood hit  again  on Aug 31st, 1981.  In this flood 5 lives were claimed from the flooding but none were in the jail.  Once again all prisoners were moved to the second floor of the jail for housing.

The yard next to the jail was were justice was served out, and prisoners were executed by hanging in the gallows. 

There was an inmate by the name of Gregory Ray Hights that shot and killed his wife while she was working at the Yoakum Memorial Hospital.  He was convicted of the Murder and was sentenced to 99 years.  He only did a few years and then ended his sentence of being locked in a cell, and hung himself.  

There were reports of jailers families living on the grounds of the jail.

This Sheriffs' office has had three officers loose their lives in  the line of duty.  The first reported death was on Monday January 17, 1949.  Sheriff Vernon Reaves, who was 31 years of age, and was two years into his first four year term.  Sheriff Reaves was killed returning from a court case in Gonzales and crossed an icy bridge.  His car hit the ice and spun out of control and went  off an embankment, flipping over several times throwing the sheriff from the car and killing him instantly.  He had a passenger in the car with him that survived.

The second killed  in the line of duty was Sheriff Ronnie Ray Dobbs who was 49 years of age.   Sheriff Dobbs had been elected to his second term as Sheriff and was in his fifth year in office.  On Sunday September 28,1969 he and his Chief Deputy were transporting two juvenile suspects to the jail when one of the suspects gained control of Sheriffs Dodds's revolver and killed him instantly.  The Chief Deputy was also shot.

The third death was Chief Deputy Albert W. Jakubek, 61 years of age.  He was shot at the same time as  Sheriff Dodds, but did not succumbed to in injuries for two weeks.  He died on Oct 12, 1969.   He had worked for sheriff  Dodds since his first election to office and remained after the sheriff was reelected giving him 5 years of service at the time of his death.