Built about 1850 of adobe bricks and cottonwood logs around steel cell blocks, this structure served as the official county jail from 1850 to 1866 and from 1868 to 1873, when San Elizario was first and then third the El Paso County seat. It housed both the jail, called “carcel” in Spanish, and the courtroom, called “juzgado.” According to legend, William Bonney, the famed outlaw Billy the Kid, freed the only man ever to escape from this jail, his cohort Melquiades Segura.