Appanoose County Sheriff's House and Jail

Centerville, United States

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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Located on the east side of Main Street in Centerville, Iowa, the Appanoose County Sheriff's House and Jail is a Victorian-era compound built in 1872 by builders Jacob Shaw and Thomas Wentworth to replace inadequate facilities that had served the county since 1855. The structure comprises a two-story brick residence for the sheriff at its front and a single-story stone jail behind, later augmented by a frame kitchen and pantry wing added around 1879. In 1904, the Pauly Jail Building Company of St. Louis modernized the facility with steel and iron cells designed to hold four men and two juveniles or women. A frame addition and shed roof carport followed shortly after. The jail operated until the mid-1960s, when it was given to the Appanoose County Historical Society in 1973 and adapted as a museum. The building was recognized on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.