Jefferson County Jail

The 1918 Georgian-Revival jailhouse was built by the noted Mullett architectural firm and is connected to the county courthouse. It is on the National Register and Inventory of American Labor Landmarks. The jail was the location of the pre-trial detention of William Blizzard, the "coal miners’ general" at the famed Battle of Blair Mountain, and some of his associates, prior to their treason trials at the Jefferson County Courthouse in 1922. Abolitionist John Brown was tried fifty years before in the same Courthouse in the nation’s other major treason trial. In 2000, the Jefferson County Commission voted to tear down the old Jefferson County jail, but its National Register designation legally mandated a historic review process. When the Commission attempted to ignore those protections, local residents sued to force compliance. In a resounding victory for jail supporters, both the state Circuit Court and Supreme Court ruled that the commission was bound by law to conduct the historic review and placed an injunction against demolition until that review took place. Finally, after three years of legal fighting, the mandated review of this historic jail got underway in June 2004.