Built in 1923, Collier County’s first jail stood on the southwest corner of the Circle as a small wooden structure with space for a few dozen inmates on the first floor and living quarters for the sheriff and his family above. The Collier County Sheriff’s Office was created on July 7, 1923, and Willem Riley “W.R.” Maynard became the county’s first sheriff. With his wife, Chief Deputy Blanche Maynard, and one other deputy, Captain W.R. Maynard maintained law and order across the newly established 1,276,160 acres of Collier County from 1923 to 1928. In the late 1940s, the Everglades City Jail was moved to a new building beside the old courthouse and remained in use until 1991, when the sheriff’s substation moved to Carnestown. After Maynard resigned in 1928, Louis J. Thorp became sheriff and served until his death in 1954. Chief Deputy Roy O. Atkins was then appointed sheriff and served until E.A. Doug Hendry was elected in 1956. Hendry hired Aubrey Rogers, with whom he had previously worked at the Fort Myers Police Department, to work in the Everglades jail, and Rogers eventually became Hendry’s chief deputy. From its original headquarters in Everglades City, the sheriff’s office moved to East Naples around 1962, when the county seat moved.