By the mid-1880s, Paso Robles had grown enough to need a dedicated jail, after law officers had resorted to locking people in a boxcar and taking prisoners to San Miguel or Templeton because there was no secure place to hold them. Through donations of materials and labor, a two-cell jail was built near 12th Street just east of the railroad tracks and finished in June 1889. Its cells each had a ball and chain, wooden doors with one-inch ventilation holes, and hand-forged hinges and clasps, though it appears to have lacked basic services. The jail remained in use until 1914, despite later deterioration, and the building was torn down in 1965. Its left door and an original ball and chain survived, and in 2009 a reconstruction was begun using the saved door and old photographs, with design changes for visitor access, donated materials, and community labor.