McMinn County Jail Inmate Search

Including the current Justice Center, six facilities have served as the jail for McMinn County. The first one, located in Calhoun, opened the year following McMinn County’s establishment in 1819. Since 1822, the county seat of Athens has been the site for the subsequent jails.

In 1946, the jail on White Street in Athens was the focal point of a gun battle -- but not between law enforcement and inmates. Instead, deputies and World War II veterans contested the “Battle of Athens” in McMinn County’s fourth jail over political mischief that ran rampant in the County and much of Tennessee. By the mid-1930s, one-time Memphis mayor E.H. Crump built a political machine that effectively ruled much of Tennessee politics. The use of intimidation and coercion characteristic of Crump and those connected to him advanced into eastern Tennessee and McMinn County. Paul Cantrell, elected in 1936 as Sheriff, became the machine’s manifestation in McMinn County.

During that period, the McMinn County jail would hold numbers of people, often bus passengers, charged with intoxication or other offenses. The mere appearance of sleepiness or fatigue, rather than evidence of drinking or other intoxication, proved sufficient for deputies to board buses and arrest. Tennessee law promoted this practice because sheriff’s and deputies collected fees for arrests regardless of the defendant’s guilt or innocence. The $16.50 per defendant could accumulate significantly if many arrests were made. In one month, the McMinn County Sheriff’s Department arrested 115.

In addition to inmates (guilty or otherwise), the McMinn County jail housed from 1936 to 1946 ballot boxes collected from precincts. Votes were counted secretly within the jail. Resistance to this practice and the Cantrell machine came to a head as World War II veterans returned to McMinn County following the War. These soldiers, once able in other places to freely consume alcohol, became ensnared in the Sheriff Department’s practice of arrests. Irritated by the interference and corruption, these veterans began running candidates for Sheriff and other offices. As with past elections, Cantrell planned for ballots in the 1946 election to be counted in the jail. By nighttime on election day, the veterans seized upon the jail where the officials tied to the machine had been counting votes. Following gunshots between the veterans and deputies in the jail, the vote count became a public exercise. Ultimately, the Cantrell and Crump machines came to a halt.

In 1991, McMinn County established its current jail on White Street in Athens. Between 2012 and 2014, an expansion project created the McMinn County Justice Center. The facility includes courtrooms along with the jail. The one-story Justice Center relies upon red brick and concrete for support and structure. Six white columns and glass walls mark the entrance into the building.

The McMinn County Justice Center enjoys the distinction of being constructed without resort to bonds or other debt. In the approximately eight to nine years preceding the construction, County officials were setting aside funds into a capital account. As of December 2014, when the Justice Center was dedicated, McMinn County was Tennessee’s only debt-free county.