Finding Wyoming’s Old Small-Town Jailhouses

If you enjoy exploring old Wyoming towns, you might have some fun trying to find where the old jailhouse used to be.

For example, if you know Gillette, Wyoming, you'll find the old jailhouse on what is now a back street in downtown. But you'll have to know what you are looking for, or you'll walk right by it.

Tiny jail. Tiny Jail in City Park

Clearmont, Wyoming: Tiny Jail in Town Park
This place gets everyone curious, and folks can't resist but to walk inside and have a look around.

The old town jail in Clearmont, Wyoming

Right in the middle of a modern playground in a city park sits an old jailhouse. The doors are open for visitors to explore, and kids can play. The cells no longer lock for safety reasons. There are two tiny cells. They were mostly used for drunkards during Prohibition.

The old town jail in Shoshoni, Wyoming, is a historic, small-scale structure representing early 20th-century law enforcement, often featured in historical photography collections. It is notable for its small size, typical of frontier-era holding cells used for brief detentions during the town's development.

The old town jail in Shoshoni, Wyoming

This one was used as a school back in the early 1900s. The Shoshoni school used the town jailhouse to hold classes for first through fourth graders. Did that scare the kids straight? Who knows. But it was used before the Shoshoni Schools built a dedicated school building.

No matter what Wyoming town you might be in, it is worth hunting around to see if the old jailhouse still stands. Then look into what else it might have been used for when it was not holding someone, like a schoolhouse, of all things. Imagine that.