From telephone calls to jail cells, this little brick building had quite a history!

Before Henderson’s current judicial center occupied the site, this building at 11 S. Main Street served two very different purposes.

It opened in October 1939 as the Southern Bell Telephone Company building, housing local telephone operators. That November, Green River Home Nurseries of Robards featured it in a newspaper advertisement promoting its landscaping work. Under the headline “A Striking Transformation!” the before-and-after photographs showed what a few well-placed shrubs could do.

In 1972, the former telephone building opened as the Henderson County Jail. The county used the jail until 1996, and the building was demolished in 1999. Today, the Henderson County Judicial Center stands on the site, another chapter in the history of this downtown property.