On April 12, 1915, Jefferson County purchased a jail cell unit from E.T. Barnum Iron Works of Detroit, Michigan. It consisted of a steel grating cage with two cells and a front prisoners' corridor, and it was shipped by rail to the temporary newly built jail in Culver. After Madras became the official county seat, officials decided to relocate the jail there as well. In 1918, a concrete pad was poured at this location, the cell unit was hauled from Culver and placed on it, and the building was then constructed around the unit. The concrete wall and roof were mixed on site, carried by bucket up ladders, and poured into forms; the horizontal imperfections still visible are cold joints left where workers stopped pouring and resumed the next day. The concrete walls are estimated to have taken 9 days to complete, though no estimate is given for the roof. In 1937, the Sheriff's Department installed a solid, non-see-through wood fence in the same location as the present one to create a private exercise yard for prisoners. The last known prisoners housed here were held during the trial of Jackson and Freeman in the latter part of 1961. After a new jail was completed in the basement of the replacement courthouse, this facility was abandoned.