1859 Jail and Marshal's Home

The dungeon-like cells of the jail housed thousands of prisoners during the bloodiest time in Jackson County's history, including Frank James and William Quantrill. An 1870s schoohouse completes the site. In 1958, a used building materials dealer nearly got permission to demolish the buildings and the right to claim the salvaged stone, brick and timber as the price for his work. The abandoned buildings were given a new lease on life when a group of civic minded citizens realized that there was yet another historic role for the unassuming two-story house at the corner of Main Street and what is now Truman Road. The one hundred year old brick home seems quaint and plain from the front, but it is adjoined by a building containing 12 massive limestone jail cells. Enter the freshly incorporated Jackson County Historical Society with the hand of former president, Harry S Truman, making the first restoration fund-raising campaign call in 1959. Ever since that brush with the wrecking ball, the Jackson County Historical Society has owned and operated the 1859 Jail, Marshal's Home and Museum. The brick and limestone buildings hold an intense history that starts with the Missouri-Kansas Border War through the Great Depression.