Visiting the jailhouse one last time: Sisters say good-bye to childhood home – Lexington Clipper Herald

LEXINGTONBuilt in 1928, the old Dawson County Jail originally looked like a brick two-story cozy Georgian home.

As the decades went by, one or more additions made the jail larger. These changes also made the building look more like a jail. A concrete step entryway was taken away with its grassy knoll front yard. Also the large windows with dark shingles were replaced with long, narrow vertical-style windows.

Perhaps very few locals know as much about the old jailhouse, set to be demolished this year to accommodate more parking, than sisters Jo Swartz and Cindy Flint.

Both are daughters of the late Dawson County Sheriff John Rohnert. Both were raised in the jailhouse at a time when the sheriff's residence was the first floor of the jail.

On a windy, chilly afternoon in January, Swartz and Flint, accompanied by family members, visited the jailhouse one last time.

The inside of the building is cold and run-down. Decades of no use and no heating can be seen in holes in the walls and felt with the chill in the air. Boxes, used to store files of county departments, fill the entrance facing Washington Street.

"If these walls could talk, they would have a lot to talk about," said Keith Swartz, husband of Jo Swartz.

Entering the empty kitchen, the visitors pause as nostalgia sets in. To the left of the kitchen sink is an open compartment in the wallthe pull operated tray elevator used to transport meals to inmates on the second floor. Grandchildren of the Rohnerts would often fight to see who would operate it, the group reported.

A small room filled with scraps of cardboard and boxes was the bathroom. A cozy room with large windows and slabs of plywood resting on the side was the sisters' bedroom.

A closet door next to the entrance door of the room holds memories of a story.

As teenagers, when Jo was dating Keith, her mother told her she couldn't leave the house until she cleaned her room. Jo got all her clothing lying around and dumped it onto a pile, hidden in the closet.

When Keith entered Jo's room, mother Doris, wanting to compliment her daughter told him what he was getting into, he said.

"Mom said, she's (referring to Jo) going to make a good wife, pointing out how clean the room was. Then she opened the closet door and all the clothes fell everywhere," Jo said laughing.

A small room next to the stairway going up to the second floor is completely filled with piles and piles of paper files. This was Rohnert's office.

Most of the paper files left in the jail are found in the hallway leading to the jail cells on the second floor. Trash bins filled with junk and trash also line this hallway.

Housed in this hallway area is a cell with red metal door with a small horizontal opening for a food tray. It was the drunk tank for drunken offenders.

Past this is a room with two large glass windows and a small table. It was the communication room for visits.

Multiple sections of rows of jail cells, framed by red sliding bars form a labyrinth of habitations for inmates of the past.

One more isolated hallway with fewer cells once housed an infamous inmate, Keith said. The cell room at the end of this hallway, directly facing the west entrance to the Dawson County Courthouse, once housed Dennis Sell, convicted rapist and murderer, he said.

A relative of one of his victims was known to have parked west of the courthouse with a firearm waiting to get a chance to shoot Sell through the window opening, Keith said.

Ultimately, Rohnert had to cover up the windows of Sell's jail cell, he said.

With one truck trailer filled and transported from the jailhouse filled with shredded documents that had once been in storage, at least another truck will be needed to dispose of old documents, said Brian Woldt with the Emergency Management for Dawson County.

Woldt has been assigned to oversee emptying the building to prepare it for demolition.

Youth needing community service hours have helped him empty the jail of storage file paper so far, he said.

Woldt said he is in great need of more helpers, be they students or community members, to expedite the clearing of files from the jailhouse.

He noted that the Dawson County Commissioners have told him the county would be willing to make a donation to any school team or group in exchange for helping remove paper from the jail.

Dawson County Commissioners approved the demolition of the old jail in late 2016. Commissioners are waiting for Woldt and helpers to completely clear the jail of storage files from county departments before soliciting bids for demolition work.

Woldt said the more helpers he gets the sooner the jail can be ready.

For Keith, Gary and their wives, Jo and Cindy, the jailhouse always has been and will be more home than jail.

During their visit they took pictures of one jail cell where an inmate hand marked the days of his or her stay by scratching ones on the wall.

If the jailhouse was a place of confinement for inmates, it was a place of comfort and memories for the Swartz and Flint families.

"I didn't think of it as a jail, when you lived there, it was your home," Gary told Cindy.

The old jailhouse was a home, one filled with "so many memories," as one granddaughter of Rohnert said.

Continue reading here:
Visiting the jailhouse one last time: Sisters say good-bye to childhood home - Lexington Clipper Herald