Bentonville Jail Inmate Search

The Benton County was founded in 1836 within a Washington county on September, 30th, and is located in the northwest corner of Arkansas. The first sheriff of Benton County was Gideon G. Pace. He served as sheriff of the county from 1836-1842, years before the Bentonville Jail was yet formed. The Benton County Jail was not yet completed until 1911. It was designed by A. O. Clark and is considered a Classical Revival building. Clark, the building's designer, was known for conceptualizing larger scale projects. The Benton County Jail was smaller than his usual projects in scope and concept of size.

The building itself is a two-story building and it is a mostly brick building with pronounced limestone quoining corners interlaced into the design in a lighter tone than the rest of the building. There are no notable wings that branch off the main building, which is a square box in shape that has Ionic columns flanking either side of the front and main entrance. These accents are topped by gabled pediment. The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and was placed there back in 1988.

Over the course of time since the Bentonville Jail was formed, numerous historical events took place. Once the building was approved by the courts to be built back in 1911, a local builder named Lon Pace was contracted to do all of the inside work on the jail other than the needed steel work. He was given $11,200 in payment for his work to be done to the jail. As for the steelworks, a Cincinnati, OH, company called Steward Iron Works was hired and was paid a total of $3100 for their steel related work. This included the doors, windows, and cells of the jail to be installed and functional. Mathews and Clark of St. Louis and Rogers, AR, were the architects of this particular project. Other than A.O. Clark, Mathews and Rogers also assisted in the architectural design.

Despite the jail being completed late in the same year construction was started, a jail break occurred in the old jail that was to be replaced at the time. This happened by means of an outside man using a crowbar in February of 1911. This new jail that was designed by A.O. Clark was in use until the late 1970's. This was when a new jail was built right behind the courthouse, which expanded on the size and jailing architecture that was necessary for today's jailing standards. The Bentonville Jail, built in 1911, still stands to be seen by visitors to the county at its original location as a historical landmark for the county. The jail is now used as the location of the county's Bentonville History Museum office. It hosts a growing collection that visitors can view and make appointments to even donate to the collection.