Before this jail was constructed, Sheriff Bright had a makeshift "jail", which was an unfinished mining adit (tunnel) onto which was fastened a large wooden door. In the early morning hours of June 2, 1909, an unnamed Mexican was incarcerated in the old tunnel jail cell. He tried to escape by placing his bedding next to the wooden door and setting it on fire. It almost killed him. He passed out from smoke inhalation, but was rescued by Sheriff Bright, who had come to bring him breakfast. Courtland was a relatively peaceful town, with only one murder and very few other high-profile crimes to its history. Most of those locked up in the jail arrived as a result of petty theft or drunken altercations. A night in the tunnel was usually enough to sober them right up.

  At the insistence of the population, contract bids were requested to build a "real" jail in March of 1909. The contract bidding process closed in April of 1909, and W.F. Woodruff was hired to design and build the new jail. He is the same man who built a similar jail still standing in nearby Gleeson. J.M. Sparks was the superintendent of construction. By the end of June, the new jail had been completed, and the moniker "Hotel Bright" was coined by the locals who saw how much better the accomodations were than the old tunnel. 

  No longer visible, just under the curve of the facade was the date, "1909", and underneath that was a large metal sign reading, "J A I L". There was originally one door and two half-height shutters on the front, although they have all been destroyed by the elements and by vandals. Only the door in the center opened all the way from the ground up. The left and right hand shutters began at the waist, and were really large armored windows. The door and shutters were 1/2 inch solid steel set in steel frames. The left and right shutters opened to view the individual cells, which had a further steel gate which could be left open or closed. The main building entry opened into a hallway, which crossed in front of both cells. The building was constructed of concrete from the Courtland Brick and Block Manufacturing Company. A flagpole stood outside the back left corner of the building. The pipe base of this flagpole can still be seen.

  On the inside of each of the left and right shutters was a grate made of stout steel prison bars. High windows on the outside wall of each cell allowed for ventilation at night, although each could be sealed with a solid steel shutter on cold nights. During the day, the front shutters could be opened or closed (depending on the weather), leaving the prisoners secured behind double barred gates.

  The jail comprised two compartments, each 14 feet square, and a hallway which ran along the front of both cells. In each of them was a small toilet (outhouse) facility, in a corner "closet". In the left hand (north) cell was placed a steel inner cage, 5 feet by 8 feet, which was imported from the old Bisbee jail. This was intended as further security for especially dangerous prisoners. It is unknown if it was ever used, as very few "really dangerous" prisoners were ever confined here. You can still see the rectangular tiled floor where this cage was located. It is in the back left corner of the left-hand cell (northeast corner of the northern cell)

  Although modern sensibilities would judge incarceration in this little place a horror (especially on a hot summer day!), it was so much nicer than the old tunnel that it caused a problem. It was common practice for Judge Cabell (the local justice of the peace) to stipulate that inmates could reduce their sentence by one day for each day they worked outside (under the supervision of Sheriff Bright), thus effectively cutting their sentence in half. An article in the Courtland Arizonan said, "The inmates of the Hotel de Bright are so well pleased with the accommodations that none of them will work outside to reduce the time limit of their stay."

  Three of the iron bars in one window were cut with a hacksaw in January of 1911 by a locally infamous Mexican man named Salvador Chacon (but known locally as "Frijoles"). He tried to escape but was unable to complete the job before it was discovered by Sheriff Bright. The bars were repaired. The cut bars currently visible in the windows happened decades later during the vandalization of the abandoned jailhouse.

  May 9, 1912, a Mexican man named Octaviano Sanchez was shot and killed by local businessman John Hallum. Sanchez was brought to this jail where he was treated by the doctor, but died during the night. The shooting was ruled by the jury to be self-defense, as Sanchez had entered Hallum's home, and brandished a large knife at Hallum. Interestingly, the last resident of Courtland, Eugene Yoakum, was one of the jurors at that trial. Yoakum lived among the ruins of Courtland, scaring away visitors, until his death in 1974.

  The one and only murder in Courtland happened in January of 1913, when Jennie Parker shot and killed Dan Danielson. Apparently Miss Parker was upset at the attention that Danielson had paid to another woman, she having thought their relationship was more serious than he apparently did. After an argument at the saloon which Danielson owned, he took his gun, fired it at a liquor cabinet in anger, and then put the gun behind the bar counter. When the argument continued, Miss Parker ran behind the counter, picked up the gun, and shot Danielson, who died within minutes. Miss Parker was arrested by Sheriff Bright and kept in the Courtland jail overnight, when she was taken to the county facility in Tombstone.

  In August of 1916, Sheriff Bright was involved in a shoot-out with two robbers. He was shot in the leg, the bullet hitting neither artery nor bone, and killed the two robbers, hitting them with five of the six shots in his revolver. He crawled a half-mile with a bleeding leg, unsure if the robbers were dead or not. When a posse was sent out to bring them in, they were found dead. Their bodies were brought back here to the jail by the posse. It was noted that in Deputy Bright's 15 years of service, he had never shot anyone before this. Courtland was generally a peaceful town.

  After the shut-down of the Courtland Arizonan newspaper in 1920, local news was no longer reported, and so the last date of the jail's operation is unknown. It was still in operation (although sporadically) in 1920, but by 1930 had fallen into disuse.

  Photographs taken in 1937 show the steel doors still in place, along with the grates behind them. The windows were still barred, the shutters propped open, and the building still standing, although it looks a little worn. It had ceased to be used as a jail by that date, and stood as an empty reminder of busier days in the town of Courtland.