Pauly Jail Co. of Alabama built this jail in 1912 for $7,500, using plans by Manly Jail Works of Dalton, GA. It replaced an 1880 jail that had become unfit. The new jail housed up to 16 prisoners upstairs, while the county sheriff and his family lived downstairs; eight sheriffs lived there from 1912 to 1964. In the 1930s, two prisoners cut window bars and escaped. Death row prisoners were held here, but the gallows were never used. In 1964, a new county jail opened on the Franklin Square and this jail closed. The 1912 jail was listed on the National Register in 1981, and in 1987 the Heard County Historical Society rehabilitated it with help from Callaway Foundations and other donors.