Texas penitentiary huntsville

O. B. Ellis Unit ( E1, previously Ellis I Unit [1]) is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison located in unincorporated Walker County, Texas, [2] 12 miles (19 km) north of Huntsville. The unit, with about 11,427 acres (4,624 ha) of space,‌ now houses up to 2,400 male prisoners. [3] Ellis is situated in a wooded area shared with the ...

Texas penitentiary huntsville. Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, Austin, Texas. Convict Registers, vols. 1998/038-138–1998/038-176. ... Most served in Huntsville, though there are records for inmates who served in Rusk Penitentiary, ...

The Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville opened in 1849, one year after the state legislature created the penitentiary system. As the first state prison in Texas, the Huntsville site soon became known as the "Walls Unit" for the 15-foot brick wall that surrounds the prison yard. The initial inmate, William G. Sansom, was received at the Walls Unit in 1849 for cattle rustling ...

Coordinates: Location Address: Huntsville, Texas. Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas was established in 1879, and is believed to be haunted by a number of spirits and apparitions throughout it's 272-acre campus. Austin Hall was constructed in 1851 as Austin College, and is said to be haunted by the ghost of an unidentified woman ...Shawshank Disc Golf Penitentiary. Suggest a change. Course Tools. Huntsville, TX. 4.7. 932 ratings. Google Maps Apple Maps. Create scorecard Before you go. Restricted hours. Call ahead. Pay to play. $5/day. Limited access. Good conditions. 1 day ago. About the course. 23 hole course, very technical, water in play on 5 holes.All mail should be addressed as such: Inmate's full name. Inmate's state identification number (7 digits) Name of Facility or Institution. Address and Zip Code. Address: Texas State Prison - Huntsville Unit. 815 …Coordinates: Location Address: Huntsville, Texas. Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas was established in 1879, and is believed to be haunted by a number of spirits and apparitions throughout it's 272-acre campus. Austin Hall was constructed in 1851 as Austin College, and is said to be haunted by the ghost of an unidentified woman ...Tour. The "Walls Unit" is the central prison unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Opened in 1849, it is the oldest prision in Texas. The unit's nickname comes from the surrounding massive red brick wall. Originally the walls were sandstone but were encased in the red bricks in 1940, giving it the current ominous appearance. W. J. "Jim" Estelle Unit (E2, originally the Ellis II Unit) also known as the Estelle Supermax Penitentiary, is a prison located on Farm to Market Road 3478 in unincorporated Walker County, Texas, United States, 10 miles (16 km) north of central Huntsville. The prison, with about 5,459 acres (2,209 ha) of space, is operated by the Texas ... The State of Texas authorized the use of the electric chair in 1923, and ordered all executions to be carried out by the state in Huntsville. Prior to 1923, Texas counties were responsible for their own executions. The State of Texas executed the first inmate by electrocution on February 8, 1924. Charles Reynolds (Red River County) was executed.

Images Old Huntsville Prison Administration Building Folklorist John A. Lomax visited the Huntsville Unit of the Texas State Penitentiary several times in the 1930s to record inmates singing and playing musical instruments. A red brick structure replaced this building in the early 1940s. Source: E.C. Kropp Co. Prison Conduct Record for Augustus …Texas Corrections will only accept book parcels at Huntsville Unit Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville when they are delivered by USPS. Any parcels delivered by way of a courier facility like UPS or Fedex will most likely be rejected because they need to have a signature during delivery and no corrections officer will sign for any delivery on behalf …Prisoner on Texas' death row on May 1, 1997 at the Ellis One Unit outside of Huntsville, Texas. The rise of mass incarceration in America. This is J. D. Autry, sentenced to death by lethal injection and incarcerated in the Ellis Unit of …2024 Texas State Doubles Championships is a PDGA-sanctioned disc golf doubles tournament in Huntsville, Texas beginning March 2, 2024 and hosted by Stillbanging LLC. skip to main content; skip to navigation; skip ... Sat-Sun, March 2-3, 2024 at Shawshank Disc Golf Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas Amateur XB-tier · PDGA-sanctioned …HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man who had long claimed his conviction more than 20 years ago was based on false testimony and questionable evidence was executed Wednesday for fatally shooting two people, including his cousin. Ivan Cantu received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 6:47 p.m. at the state …Texas Department of Criminal Justice | PO Box 99 | Huntsville, Texas 77342-0099 | (936) 295-6371Prosecutors say a Texas woman whose execution was delayed in 2022 amid growing doubts she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter had evidence suppressed at her …

MSR Transport Services,Inc. United States. Typically responds within 3 days. $82,000 - $110,000 a year. Full-time + 1. Home every 3 weeks + 1. Easily apply. Any felony, prison time for a felony, parole for a felony within the last 8 years. Seeking Established TEAMs to operate like Owner Operators in a tractor…. This page details the characteristics, contact details, address, city, state, location, zipcode, and county authority for HUNTSVILLE UNIT in Texas. This page is the source for statistics regarding this facility, including inmate counts, average daily population, facility capacity, inmate-on-inmate assaults, death rown prisoners residing here, staff deaths due to inmates, whether the facility ... W. J. "Jim" Estelle Unit (E2, originally the Ellis II Unit) also known as the Estelle Supermax Penitentiary, is a prison located on Farm to Market Road 3478 in unincorporated Walker County, Texas, United States, 10 miles (16 km) north of central Huntsville. The prison, with about 5,459 acres (2,209 ha) of space, is operated by the Texas ... In 1848, just a few years after Huntsville’s founding, the Texas Legislature chose the city as the location for the state’s first enclosed penitentiary. While it proved to be critical during the Civil War, it was the prison’s transformation during Reconstruction and into the early 20th century that set the stage for the prison rodeo.The Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville opened in 1849, one year after the state legislature created the penitentiary system. As the first state prison in Texas, the Huntsville site soon became known as the "Walls Unit" for the 15-foot brick wall that surrounds the prison yard.

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From one o’clock on the afternoon of July 24, 1974, until shortly before ten o’clock the night of August 3, eleven days later, one of the longest hostage-taking sieges in the history of the United States took place in Texas’s Huntsville State Prison. The ringleader, Federico (Fred) Gomez Carrasco, the former boss of the largest drug-running …Texas Prison Museum Huntsville is perhaps best known as the home of the Texas State Penitentiary. Established in 1848 as the first state prison, it has housed generations of Texans. Hear their stories, and get to know the inner workings of the prison, when you stop by the Texas Prison Museum. 491 State Highway 75 North Huntsville, TX 77320 (936 ... W. J. "Jim" Estelle Unit (E2, originally the Ellis II Unit) also known as the Estelle Supermax Penitentiary, is a prison located on Farm to Market Road 3478 in unincorporated Walker County, Texas, United States, 10 miles (16 km) north of central Huntsville. The prison, with about 5,459 acres (2,209 ha) of space, is operated by the Texas ... Texas’s remoteness served to insulate the state from the worst of the fighting, and the prison in Huntsville took in convicts and prisoners of war from all three states. But with the surrender of the Confederate army in 1865, civil authority in Texas collapsed. At war’s end, "The Walls" withstood a six-week siege by a group of outlaws ...Inmates may file a Time Dispute Resolution form if they feel their time has been incorrectly calculated. Questions from the general public pertaining to time calculations may be submitted to the TDCJ Classification and Records Department, P.O. Box 99, Huntsville, TX 77342 or call (936) 437-6231.Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville or Huntsville Unit (HV), nicknamed "Walls Unit", is a Texas state prison located in Huntsville, Texas, United States. ...

815 12th Street, Huntsville, TX, 77348. Please make sure the mail or package that you are sending comes under the list of approved items. For further clarification on the allowed items, contact the prison administration directly on 936-437-1555 . Note: In case you want to send packages, you need to get prior approval from the prison administration. News Inmates Report Dangerous Practices Inside The Texas Prison With The Most Coronavirus Deaths. The Wynne Unit in Huntsville has had at least 10 deaths connected to the new coronavirus.HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS Walker County Seat, East Texas 30°43'20"N 95°33'12"W (30.711254, -95.548373) Interstate 45 and 75 Highways 190, 19 and 30 68 ... 1847: Huntsville becomes home of the Texas State Penitentiary. The prison received its first inmate in 1849. During ...Prosecutors say a Texas woman whose execution was delayed in 2022 amid growing doubts she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter had evidence suppressed at her … The minimum input required for a successful search is either of the following: the last name AND at least the first initial of the first name, or. the TDCJ number, or. the SID (state identification) number. If you provide names, the system searches for an exact match of the last name you provide. Texas Department of Criminal Justice Inmate Search. 936-295-6331. Address for mailing an inmate: Inmate Name, ID Number. Thomas Goree Unit- Correctional Institution. 7405 Highway 75 South, Huntsville, TX, 77344. Now that you know some of the basic information of the jail, you may want to use the inmate search to find an inmate.The Texas Prison Museum is located in Huntsville, Texas due to the East Texas town of Huntsville was where the first prison “The Huntsville Unit”, (more informally referred to as the Walls) was built for the newly established Texas Prison System in year 1848. The State of Texas Congress made a decision to create a commission to identify a ... The Huntsville Bat Society now has more than 1,400 members and started a Change.org petition to let the prison know some citizens of Huntsville wanted the bats to stay (to date, more than 1,200 ... Then from 1928 to 1965, the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville was also the home for the state of Texas’s male death row inmates. When the state of Texas used the electric chair for the first time it was on February 8, 1924. The state of Texas was executing Charles Reynolds, Melvin Johnson, Ewell Morris, Haden Cochran, and Harris Washington. John M. Wynne Unit. 810 FM 2821. Huntsville, TX 77349. Phone: (936) 295-9126 (**020) Location: On FM 2821 West and Hwy 75 North in Walker County. Unit Full Name: John M. Wynne Unit. Senior Warden: Rodger Bowers. Regional Director: Daniel Dickerson, Region I. Deputy Division Director: Eric Guerrero. Huntsville, TX 77344. Phone: (936) 295-6331. Location: Four miles south of downtown Huntsville on Highway 75 South in Walker County. Unit Full Name: Thomas Goree Unit. Senior Warden: Cynthia Tilley. Regional Director: Daniel Dickerson, Region I. Deputy Division Director: Eric Guerrero.Office of Superintendent of Texas State Penitentiary, Huntsville, Texas, April 2, 1880. To Sergeants in charge of Convict Camps of the Texas State Penitentiary: It has just been three years since I was first appointed super intendent of the Texas penitentiary. During that time, with the assistance, first of the board of commissioners, and ...

Huntsville Prison Threatens to Evict One Million Mexican Free-Tailed Bats. A colony of Mexican free-tailed bats emerge from an abandoned former cotton warehouse owned by …

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A historic prison in Huntsville, Texas, caught fire early Friday morning, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of inmates.The Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, known as ...The Texas Prison Museum offers an intriguing glimpse into the lives of the state's imprisoned citizens. The museum features numerous exhibits detailing the history of the Texas prison system, featuring a look inside …Shawshank Disc Golf Penitentiary. Suggest a change. Course Tools. Huntsville, TX. 4.7. 932 ratings. Google Maps Apple Maps. Create scorecard Before you go. Restricted hours. Call ahead. Pay to play. $5/day. Limited access. Good conditions. 1 day ago. About the course. 23 hole course, very technical, water in play on 5 holes.Texas State Penitentiary DEATHROW. Prison & Correctional Facility · Unofficial Page ...HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A historic prison in Huntsville, Texas, caught fire early Friday morning, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of inmates.The Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, known as ...Home page for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. skip to main content. Visitation Visitation. ... Huntsville, TX 77320-8443. Phone: (936) 295-8200 (**092) Location: One-half mile north of Hwy 30 on the west feeder road of IH-45 in Walker County. Unit Full Name: Reverend C.A. Holliday Unit. Texas Department of Criminal Justice | PO Box 99 | Huntsville, Texas 77342-0099 | (936) 295-6371 HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man convicted of strangling a 5-year-old girl who was taken from a Walmart store nearly 22 years ago and burning her body was executed Thursday evening. David Renteria, 53, was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m. CST following an injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the killing of Alexandra …Ferguson Unit. / 30.95861°N 95.70472°W / 30.95861; -95.70472. Jim Ferguson Unit ( FE) is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison for men located in unincorporated Madison County, Texas. The 4,355-acre (1,762 ha) prison is located on Farm to Market Road 247, near Midway and 20 miles (32 km) northwest of Huntsville.

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Old Sparky at the Tucker Unit, Arkansas.It was used to conduct 104 executions from 1926 to 1948. Old Sparky is the nickname of the electric chairs in Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Old Smokey was the nickname of the electric chairs used in …Correctional Institutions Division - Prison. Kelly Strong Senior Warden. Huntsville (HV) ACA Accredited Unit Since August 2007. Address: Huntsville Unit 815 12th Street …Mar 4, 2024 · “Hometown Prison” is about Huntsville, Texas, where Linklater lived from 1970 (the year he turned ten) to 1981. Driving around Huntsville State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas A.K.A "Walls Unit". The Huntsville Bat Society now has more than 1,400 members and started a Change.org petition to let the prison know some citizens of Huntsville wanted the bats to stay (to date, more than 1,200 ... Texas Department of Criminal Justice | PO Box 99 | Huntsville, Texas 77342-0099 | (936) 295-6371 A Texas man convicted of strangling a 5-year-old girl who was taken from a ... was pronounced dead at 7:11 p.m. CST following an injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the killing ...Dudney, Ross Nathaniel. "Texas Reconstruction: The Role of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1870, Smith County (Tyler) Texas." M.S. thesis, Texas A&I University, 1986. "Freedmen's Bureau Report of an Inspection of the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, Walker County."Uncovering the East Texas Penitentiary . Archaeology during the Penitentiary Era at Rusk State Hospital. SWCA Environmental Consultants. September 22, 2023. ... The furniture factory was one of the buildings destroyed during the 1911 fire and manufacturing moved to Huntsville afterward. Based on historical records, the furniture ... ….

Here is the format for how you must address a letter to a prisoner at Holliday Unit (NF) – Texas Transfer Facility: INMATE NAME AND REGISTER NUMBER. Holliday Unit (NF) – Texas Transfer Facility. 295 IH-45 North. Huntsville TX, …Texas State Penitentiary DEATHROW. Prison & Correctional Facility · Unofficial Page ... John M. Wynne Unit. 810 FM 2821. Huntsville, TX 77349. Phone: (936) 295-9126 (**020) Location: On FM 2821 West and Hwy 75 North in Walker County. Unit Full Name: John M. Wynne Unit. Senior Warden: Rodger Bowers. Regional Director: Daniel Dickerson, Region I. Deputy Division Director: Eric Guerrero. 1697 FM 980. Huntsville, TX 77343. Phone: (936) 295-5756 (**010) Location: Twelve miles north of Huntsville at 1697 FM 980 in Walker County. Unit Full Name: O.B. Ellis Unit. Senior Warden: Anthony Newton. Regional Director: Daniel Dickerson, Region I. Deputy Division Director: Eric Guerrero. Shawshank Disc Golf Penitentiary. Suggest a change. Course Tools. Huntsville, TX. 4.7. 932 ratings. Google Maps Apple Maps. Create scorecard Before you go. Restricted hours. Call ahead. Pay to play. $5/day. Limited access. Good conditions. 2 days ago. About the course. 23 hole course, very technical, water in play on 5 holes.936-437-1555. Fax. 936-437-6325. Mailing Address. PO Box 99, Huntsville, TX 77342-0099. View Official Website. Huntsville Unit is for State Prison offenders sentenced … Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Correctional Institutions Division. PO Box 99. Huntsville, TX 77342-0099. Phone: (936) 437-2173. Fax: (936) 437-6325. In 1919 the state sold the iron works to the Texas Steel Company of Beaumont. That company failed, however, and the plant reverted in 1929 to the state, … Texas penitentiary huntsville, A family feud over drugs, money and fried fish roils the heart of the Texas prison system. By Keri Blakinger. It is 11 a.m. on a Saturday and the sun is shining on …, Austin Price/KUT. Arnold Darby, a 69-year-old inmate at Huntsville's Goree Unit, speaks with the Texas Standard about his craft as a bootmaker. While in prison, he has made boots for people all across the state, including politicians and athletes. Like any other cobbler, it took Arnold Darby years to learn the ins and outs of his trade., The following is a list of people executed by the U.S. state of Texas between 1940 and 1949. During this period 78 people were executed by electrocution at the Huntsville Unit in Texas. Executions 1940–1949. 1940 – 8 executions # Executed person Race Age Sex Date of execution Crime(s) Governor 179: J.W. Rickman: White: 22: M:, Images Old Huntsville Prison Administration Building Folklorist John A. Lomax visited the Huntsville Unit of the Texas State Penitentiary several times in the 1930s to record inmates singing and playing musical instruments. A red brick structure replaced this building in the early 1940s. Source: E.C. Kropp Co. Prison Conduct Record for Augustus …, Welcome to the official Texas Correctional Industries (TCI) Web Site. Come on in and view our products in Graphics, Janitorial, Garment (Textile), Modular, Furniture and Metal! Home About Us Programs Publications Showrooms FAQs Customer Survey Contact Us Intranet: City & County Municipalities: Law Enforcement:, Texas History 101. The state's first enclosed penitentiary, a 225-cell facility in Huntsville, has weathered some hard times and expanded to include seven prison units. JUST THREE YEARS AFTER ..., Austin Price/KUT. Arnold Darby, a 69-year-old inmate at Huntsville's Goree Unit, speaks with the Texas Standard about his craft as a bootmaker. While in prison, he has made boots for people all across the state, including politicians and athletes. Like any other cobbler, it took Arnold Darby years to learn the ins and outs of his trade., The Texas Department of Corrections and its predecessors recorded personal data and commitment information about convicts entering the Texas prison system at Rusk …, 1974 Huntsville Prison siege. The 1974 Huntsville Prison siege was an eleven-day prison uprising that took place from July 24 to August 3, 1974, at the Huntsville Walls Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections in Huntsville, Texas. The standoff was one of the longest hostage-taking sieges in United States history., Prisoner on Texas' death row on May 1, 1997 at the Ellis One Unit outside of Huntsville, Texas. The rise of mass incarceration in America. This is J. D. Autry, sentenced to death by lethal injection and incarcerated in the Ellis Unit of …, The Texas Department of Criminal Justice began in 1849, when the first state prison, Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, was built in Huntsville. One of its most notable features is that to this day, it houses an execution chamber …, Assignment Huntsville: Memoirs of a Texas Prison Official. University of Texas Press, 1957. Texas Legislature, Report of the Commission Appointed by the Governor of Texas, April 10, 1875 to Investigate the Alleged Mismanagement and Cruel Treatment of Convicts, 1875. Texas Legislature, Report of the Penitentiary Investigation ..., On October 1, 1849, the first prisoner, a convicted horse thief from Fayette County, entered the partially completed Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. The law authorized gubernatorial appointment of three commissioners to locate a site and choose a superintendent and three directors to manage the institution., The Texas Prison Museum is located in Huntsville, Texas due to the East Texas town of Huntsville was where the first prison “The Huntsville Unit”, (more informally referred to as the Walls) was built for the newly established Texas Prison System in year 1848. The State of Texas Congress made a decision to create a commission to identify a ... , Texas State Penitentiary, circa 1873-1875 Untitled Huntsville "Walls" Unit . Location Skip Interactive Map. Open in Google Maps. Metadata. Citation Info. Texas Historical Marker, “State Penitentiary C.S.A. and Texas Civil War Manufacturing,” East Texas History, accessed April 22, 2024, ..., Huntsville Unit- Correctional Institution Inmate Search and Jail Roster Information. Huntsville Unit- Correctional Institution is a high security State Prison located in city of Huntsville, Walker County, Texas. It houses adult inmates (18+ age) who have been convicted for their crimes which come under Texas state law., In 1848, just a few years after Huntsville’s founding, the Texas Legislature chose the city as the location for the state’s first enclosed penitentiary. While it proved to be critical during the Civil War, it was the prison’s transformation during Reconstruction and into the early 20th century that set the stage for the prison rodeo., God Save Texas. Excavates the State’s Dark Past—and the Hopes for Its Future. The three-part HBO documentary brings filmmakers Richard Linklater, Alex Stapleton, and Iliana Sosa back to their ..., Huntsville, TX 77344. Phone: (936) 295-6331. Location: Four miles south of downtown Huntsville on Highway 75 South in Walker County. Unit Full Name: Thomas Goree Unit. Senior Warden: Cynthia Tilley. Regional Director: Daniel Dickerson, Region I. Deputy Division Director: Eric Guerrero., The minimum input required for a successful search is either of the following: the last name AND at least the first initial of the first name, or. the TDCJ number, or. the SID (state identification) number. If you provide names, the system searches for an exact match of the last name you provide. Texas Department of Criminal Justice Inmate Search., Texas History 101 Texas History 101 The state's first enclosed penitentiary, a 225-cell facility in Huntsville, has weathered some hard times and expanded to include seven prison units., God Save Texas. Excavates the State’s Dark Past—and the Hopes for Its Future. The three-part HBO documentary brings filmmakers Richard Linklater, Alex Stapleton, and Iliana Sosa back to their ..., William Speer, 49, was set to receive a lethal injection Oct. 26 at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. Instead, Texas' top criminal appeals court stopped the scheduled execution for the man ..., The Texas 7 were a group of prisoners who escaped from the John B. Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas, on December 13, 2000. Six of the seven were apprehended over a month later, between January 22–24, 2001, as a direct result of …, Dec 16, 2023 · Ellis Unit - Huntsville, Texas. At one point this prison was the site of men's death row. At the current time, this facility houses about 2000 inmates. There are no air conditioning units so the temperature can easily reach well over 90 degrees. Johnny Frank Garrett was executed here in 1992. United States Penitentiary - Beaumont, Texas , Texas Department of Criminal Justice | PO Box 99 | Huntsville, Texas 77342-0099 | (936) 295-6371 ..., Reverend C.A. Holliday Unit. 295 IH-45 North. Huntsville, TX 77320-8443. Phone: (936) 295-8200 (**092) Location: One-half mile north of Hwy 30 on the west feeder road of IH-45 in Walker County. Unit Full Name: Reverend C.A. Holliday Unit. Senior Warden: Kelly Metz. Regional Director: Daniel Dickerson, Region I. , Inmates may file a Time Dispute Resolution form if they feel their time has been incorrectly calculated. Questions from the general public pertaining to time calculations may be submitted to the TDCJ Classification and Records Department, P.O. Box 99, Huntsville, TX 77342 or call (936) 437-6231., This article was written in 2022 and Jim would still be in prison with four more years left on his sentence. On June 16, 1928, Jim Norton was assigned to the Ferguson Farm, located seventeen miles north of Huntsville. He was reassigned to the Huntsville “Walls” Unit on August 3, 1928. Jim got into a heap of trouble on New Year's Day of 1929 ... , Everything has to start somewhere, and the infamous Huntsville Unit of the Texas state prison system opened 166 years ago Thursday. On Oct. 1, 1849, the not-quite-finished Texas State Penitentiary ..., Texas Department of Criminal Justice | PO Box 99 | Huntsville, Texas 77342-0099 | (936) 295-6371, This page details the characteristics, contact details, address, city, state, location, zipcode, and county authority for HUNTSVILLE UNIT in Texas. This page is the source for statistics regarding this facility, including inmate counts, average daily population, facility capacity, inmate-on-inmate assaults, death rown prisoners residing here, staff deaths due to inmates, whether the facility ... , In 1848, just a few years after Huntsville’s founding, the Texas Legislature chose the city as the location for the state’s first enclosed penitentiary. While it proved to be critical during the Civil War, it was the prison’s transformation during Reconstruction and into the early 20th century that set the stage for the prison rodeo.