GREENVILLE, GA-- Maria Gosdin's new home is more than a fixer-upper. She's the new owner of a brick building built in 1896 that has been known to sleep as many as 80 people, albeit restlessly.
Her new kitchen is nearly finished. Her living room is next. The cellblocks in her new home -- they're the next phase of Gosdin's renovation.
For 90 years, this was the Meriwether County jail. By the time a judge ordered it closed in 1986, it was an ugly and overcrowded place.
Meriwether Co. Sheriff Chuck Smith says he started his career in law enforcement working dispatch at the old jail, which doubled as the sheriff's office. A generation earlier, the county sheriff actually lived in the front of the building. Inmates stayed in the rear.
"On a summer day, it was extremely hot back there. Of course that's all iron back there. And iron does get hot," Smith said. "It would be, under today's standards, inhumane."
But to Gosdin, it's a diamond in the rough. Gosdin said she heard county officials discussing demolition of the building. She purchased it for $5,000 at auction.
Touring the rusting, iron cellblocks which used to segregate African American prisoners and white prisoners, Gosdin mused about it's future. "It's going to be a place for my family to come and have family reunions," she said.
She is drawn to the old jail's sturdy structure, its gothic cellblocks and its dark history. Her favorite spot, she says, is a room that overlooks the gallows in what she calls "the hanging tower."
The viewing room has a window that faces downtown Greenville, and another that opens into a room with a trapdoor in the floor and a hook in the ceiling. The hook once held a rope, from which the condemned would hang.
When she completes her renovation, Gosdin says, "I plan on making the viewing room my art studio."
Gosdin says her renovation project, which is one block from the Meriwether County courthouse, has drawn the attention of passersby. Some of them stop and identify themselves as former inmates, she says.
She hopes to complete the first phase of her project by the end of summer. Renovating the cell blocks, she says, is a long-term goal. When it's done, she hopes to open it to the public.
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