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Advance reservations were not required and guests may have been less than eager, but the historic Red Top Jail in Llano, TX is probably the town’s oldest bed-and-breakfast accommodation. Mayor Mike Reagor often begins his guided tours of the jail with the B&B analogy. He is one of several local volunteers who have studied the history of the jail, help with on-going restoration efforts, and provide guided tours.

The exterior of the building is Llano-quarried granite, with interior rock faced with plaster, making the walls two feet thick. Completed in December, 1895, the jail has five levels and was constructed in only eight months. Huge cracks which have occurred in the walls may be the result of a poor foundation due to the quick building process. The Pauly Jail Building and Manufacturing Co. of St. Louis had already been in business for 39 years when they were hired to build the Llano jail, but even before that, P. J. Pauly, Sr. and his family were steamboat blacksmiths on the Mississippi River. As pioneers moved west, there was a need for detention facilities in remote areas, so the Paulys designed and built steel cages that could be mounted on flatbed wagons, creating portable jails. Pauly jails, eventually built all over the U.S., became the standard in prison systems, drawing special recognition with a unique Patent Rotary Jail. Although Red Top Jail in Llano was not built using that exact system, it is built in a well-known Pauly circular interior design, each floor planned around a narrow stairway in the center.

The first floor living quarters for the jailer and his family were originally comprised of three rooms and a kitchen; toilet facilities were outdoors. The jailer’s wife provided meals for the prisoners, but they were also allowed to have food brought in to them from the “outside”. Due to heavy metal doors and the building’s design, prisoners could not gain access to the family’s space.

Once through the “booking room” and past secure doors, prisoners and guards or deputies climbed the central stairway to the second floor cells. “Reportedly, there were lots of fights in this area because the prisoners had to be ‘convinced’ to go up these narrow metal stairs,” Reagor explained. All the cells are on the second floor. There are four “maximum security” cells and separate “drunk tank” cells. “At one time, Llano was a booming town with a population of about 8,000 people,” Reagor said. Reportedly, there were more saloons than churches, evidently providing a steady stream of overnight guests. Demonstrating the technique used for securing a prisoner in a cell, Reagor explained the four separate locking mechanisms, the final one ending in the “slammer sound”.

On the second floor cell level, “graffiti” can still be seen, scratched onto the walls or burned there by a candle or lighter. Prisoners often wrote their names, sometimes the time and date of their incarceration and of course, several girls’ names can be seen as well. There was no electricity, but windows let in light, however the windows proved to be a big problem. “At one time there was a county warehouse behind the jail and a prisoner yelled down to a worker to throw up a nail. The guy had to serve 120 days and he was marking them on the wall, but the sheriff caught them. Other times, using string, whiskey bottles from friends on the ground were hauled up by inmates through the windows.”

Prisoners also actually escaped through the windows. Reagor retells a familiar local story: ‘‘One day a DPS trooper walked into the jail and asked the jailer if the wash was being done. When the reply was ‘no’, the trooper informed the jailer that there was a load of sheets tied together and hanging down from the tower windows!”

We ascended to the third floor, which has round bars with four doors (north, south, east and west), all with hinges and locks, but they lead nowhere. The purpose of the doors is not known. You can look through and see the cells below, thus one guard could watch all the prisoners. It seems that aside from a place for the guards, the third floor is no more than a landing to get to the tower levels. Reagor said the jails were designed as a “kit” and perhaps this third floor was just part of the kit shipped and then used in construction. I wondered myself if it could have been designed as an area for future jail cell expansion.

“Here in Llano our most famous story is that in 1876 Sheriff Bozarth and (Texas Ranger) Capt. Jones captured Johnny Ringo, the famous outlaw murderer, and kept him in jail two weeks before transporting him to Austin.” But that was before Red Top was built.

“In the early 1900s there was a famous murder and several people were arrested, but they were all found innocent. And about mid-century, there was a death associated with the jail, which some say was a murder. But the most well-known prisoner was Henry Lee Lucas. A DPS officer tells that Henry Lee Lucas was arrested,” presumably on some minor charge, “and held overnight, then released. It was not until later that Lucas was discovered to be a notorious serial killer,” Reagor told us.

As we proceeded up to the fourth level, we had to watch our heads to keep from bumping. Originally, the stairway was open all the way to the top, but when prisoners began escaping upward through the tower, the upper levels were welded shut, leaving only a small opening that could be closed and secured. Windows opened toward the inside, and the central stairwell shaft was designed for air circulation, which was impeded when the fourth and fifth levels were welded. Heavy metal straps over the windows were not part of the original structure, but added later for security. You can still see the place where an escape was actually completed by pushing the bars and digging out through the rock wall in the tower.

On the fourth level, we are in the gallows of the jail. Some old-timers will say there were hangings at Red Top, but there’s no evidence that any hangings were ever carried out here. We are standing in the “drop” area of the tower. If there had been a hanging, the condemned prisoner would have stood here. “From this spot, it is exactly 13 steps to the highest, the fifth, level of the jailhouse,” Reagor said.

Gene Hall Miller carries on her family’s ranching tradition, as well as operating guest lodging at her Dutch Mountain and Pecan Creek ranches. Her maternal great-grandfather, James Frank Kendrick, was a City Marshal and jailer at Red Top in the 1920s-‘30s. Gene’s mother, Ann Etta Moss Hall had fond remembrances of visiting “granny and pappa” when they lived at Red Top. “Granny cooked for the prisoners and as a young girl, Ann Etta loved to play cards with the prisoners.” Gene remembers that when she herself was a child, her mother had a yard man named Al. Gene just loved Al, who was always doing something nice for her, like making a box kite, which she promptly crashed. In the second grade, Gene’s Brownie Scout troop took a field trip to Red Top and when they got to the cells, there was her beloved Al behind bars! It seems that Al was a good man in almost every way, but he did love to drink and that often landed him in Red Top. “There we were, all in our little uniforms, filing along the walkway. But evidently not as embarrassed as I, Al just called out to me as I walked by, ‘Hello there, Miss Genie!’ “

Tours of Red Top Jail are conducted during frequent festivals and community activities throughout the year and each December there is an anniversary celebration for Red Top. Tours are free, with donations accepted, all of which go toward continuing restoration and upkeep of the jail. The Red Top was sold to the City of Llano in 2005, and the money paid was used to restore the cupola tower on the county courthouse.