Former Rudd jail donated to historical society

By Thomas Nelson, tnelson@charlescitypress.com

About 2,000 pounds of a jail that formerly housed lawn mowers was moved to the Rudd Historical Society Thursday morning.

The jail is much more than a cage that’s been rusted with old age and covered with cobwebs — and it is finding a new home outside of a cemetery shed. The jail is being given to the Rudd Historical Society at no charge.

In the past, the jail was moved from the city of Rudd to the Oakwood Cemetery to prevent equipment thefts.

“There was a point that the insurance company, from what I understood, was not going insure us anymore,” said Floyd Township Trustee Ron Stewart. “Now it’s contracted.”

The historical society got hold of Stewart about a month and a half ago.

“We just donated it to them, with a stipulation that if they ever get rid of it, it comes back,” Stewart said. “I don’t know what we’d need it for, but we want the option.”

Gabe Leach and Dana Larson of the Larson Shop in Rudd helped move the jail with the promise of chocolate from Joyce Navratil, a Rudd Historian.

Larson has a special relationship with the jail.

“A bunch of kids were doing something we shouldn’t of, (and) Jonnny Nelson, a cop at the time, he put us in there,” Larson said.

Larson said he and his childhood friends were put in the jail for about 10 minutes. Larson was about 12 or 14 when he was briefly incarcerated, and estimates it was about 50 years ago that he spent his time in the slammer.

“Of course to young kids it felt like hours,” Larson said. “So it was a lesson learned. I never forgot it.”

While Navratil and others have been able to locate the cell, the furnishings have’t been located yet. According to Larson and Wendy Wood, the grandchild of a Rudd resident who started the search, the jail had a couple of uncomfortable-looking metal cots.

Wood used to play in the jail when she was a kid before it was moved to the cemetery.

The jail use to be in a cement building, at a spot that was Rudd’s city hall among other things. That has since been taken down and replaced with a storage facility.

“In the summer they had band concerts on the stage that was on the west side of this building,” Navratil said. “It was city hall at one time. It was also a fire station and this stage is where I was up on and I saw the jail.”

According to an article from the Associated Press that the Rudd Historical Society has on hand, the jail itself is over a century old.

The jail, though small, held two rooms.

There currently isn’t any record of where the jail was before it was in the city hall/fire station, or when exactly it was transferred to the cemetery, Navratil said.

Navratil credits Wood with bringing the jail back.

“I’ve always wanted that jail to purchase myself, and take it to my farm,” Wood said. “When they offered to give it to her, I said, ‘don’t you worry about me, you get that jail and give it to the museum.'”