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September 1940. "Jail. Silverton, San Juan County, Colorado." Medium format acetate negative by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
If I had to guess, I would say that the first floor was probably the residence of the sheriff. That arrangement was pretty common in the mid-20th century.
According to their local history website, there was an escape from the prior jail building used right before this one made its debut in 1902. Maybe it's because of the simple yet ingenious upper floors cellblock, but the site claims there were no more escapes from Silverton during the tenure of this jail building.
I'm making an assumption here...The first floor with windows without bars is probably administrative while the upper floors containing the bars on the windows would have the cell blocks. Digging a tunnel out of there from the upper floors would be difficult to accomplish.
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