Palo Alto Co. jail celebrates 100 years
Public gets to see inside of cell during open houseBy KATIE WILLIAMS, Messenger staff writer
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EMMETSBURG - The Palo Alto County jail celebrated being 100 years young by holding an open house Tuesday.
The public got tours of the newly remodeled booking room, the ''drunk tanks'' and the cells at the facility located in Emmetsburg.
Jon Jamison's business is just down the street from the jail and when he heard about the open house he walked over to take a look around.
''An open house at the county jail just seemed like an oxymoron to me,'' he said.
Breanna Schutz, 9, and her brother Matthew, 6, took the tour with their grandmother to learn a few things about getting in trouble.
They were locked up in a cell for a few minutes to see what it would be like if they didn't behave for their grandmother.
''It's a good thing it wasn't for very long,'' said Breanna Schutz, of Emmetsburg. ''I wouldn't want to be in there for more than a little while.''
Kenley Zwiefel, a jailer at the facility, said when the jail was still a ''mom and pop'' jail, most of the inmates wouldn't spend more than a little while there.
''They were mostly drunks back then,'' he said. ''They'd pick them up on Saturday night and kick them out Sunday morning.''
Jean Hartsock said her brother was probably one of those drunks Zwiefel was talking about.
''My brother stayed here when he got drunk,'' she said. ''He liked to party a lot.''
Hartsock said she lived in Emmetsburg all of her life and had never seen the inside of the jail, so she couldn't resist when she found out an open house was being held.
''It looks like a 100-year-old cell,'' she said. ''It's so sturdy.''
Todd Suhr, chief deputy for the Palo Alto County Sheriff's Department, said the builders knew how to make things last.
''I don't think it's going to fall down tomorrow,'' he said. ''They built a hell of a jail 100 years ago.''
The jail has been through a lot of changes over the years, Suhr said. The most recent change was the remodeling of the booking room.
''We've made it a little better, a little more secure,'' he said.
He can monitor the cameras throughout the facility in the booking area, he said. The next project is to remodel the porch area into a visitation area and a secure way to take the prisoners into the outside yard for exercise.
Albert Neary, of Emmetsburg, was the Palo Alto County sheriff in the 1980s and said there have been a lot of changes since he worked there.
''It's completely different,'' he said. ''The walls are the only thing that haven't changed.''
Suhr said the jail was grandfathered in for a lot of the national standards, but they have worked very hard to maintain the jail and make it a safe place for everyone who walks through the doors.
''One of the limitations of a 100-year-old jail was there were no visitation areas,'' he said.
The sheriff and his wife also used to live in the building when it was first built, he said. The booking room was actually their sitting room, and the wife would cook all the meals for the prisoners, Suhr said.
Obviously things have changed, but the building remains because it was so well-built, he said.
Contact Katie Williams at (515) 573-2141 or katie@messengernews.net
