NEWARK -- Licking County Commissioner Tim Bubb said Thursday a tour of the Noble County Historic Museum showed what can be done with an old jail facility.
The commissioners have said they would like to turn the county's old jail, located at 46 S. Third St., into a tourist attraction, potentially resulting in tours, events and maybe even a Halloween haunted house.
The huge Millersburg sandstone building, built in 1889 on the design of prominent Columbus architect J.W. Yost, has not been used to house prisoners since a new jail was built in 1987.
Bubb and Deputy Clerk Pam Jones traveled Wednesday to Caldwell, to view Noble County's historic jail, built in 1882 and restored as a museum and visitor center.
"I think we learned a little bit about what our jail could be," Bubb said. "You can take a building of that vintage and make it look really nice."
County officials probably would turn over the operation of the former Licking County jail to a nonprofit group rather than operate it themselves, Bubb said. But the county would retain ownership to have control of its future.
"We probably don't want to be in the museum business," Bubb said. "There is some value of saving old buildings and renovating them. It's an asset, not a liability."
The three-story structure in downtown Caldwell is operated by a nonprofit organization, which leases the building from the county for $10 per year, Jones said.
The Noble County facility was one of few facilities of its type to also be used as the jailer's residence.
The former jail in Newark also was living quarters for the county sheriff and later the jail matron. Visitors coming through the Third Street entrance walked into the sheriff's front parlor, where there once were elaborate parties.
In November, an investigator with Southeastern Ohio Paranormal Investigators, a Zanesville-based group that searches buildings for evidence of spiritual activity, toured the building and concluded it is haunted.
The building is used as headquarters for the Licking County shredding program. The massive amount of records once stored in the building has been dramatically reduced since Katy Klettlinger was hired as the county's first Records Center coordinator in 2008.
The former jail was home to the Licking County Veterans Service Commission from the early 1990s until 2005.
In 1998, the late Howard LeFevre, founder of The Works, proposed the sandstone building be turned into a museum for the Licking County Art Association, but estimated a cost of $4 million to $5 million to tear out the building's jail structures and interior stone walls.
The expense would be far less to prepare the building for a tourist use, however, Commissioner Doug Smith said, because most of the interior could remain intact.
The commissioners made repairs to the slate roof recently but have not spent much on the building in recent years.
"We don't want to expend any money on it until we determine the final use for it," Smith said.
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