Built in 1868, the Old Shelby County Jail was an "escape proof" building designed by architect James Cook. The jail consisted of a double-walled interior structure which was filled with sand; if an inmate dug a hole through the wall, sand would pour from the walls through the breach causing a drop in the sand level which would trigger alarms.
Although the design was ingenious, it was no match for "the King of the Memphis Underworld," Diggs Nolen. Serving a twenty-year sentence for fraud and narcotics, in 1924, Nolen chipped a hole two feet wide through the rear wall of the jail, crawled into the interior jail yard, and scaled the exterior wall to freedom. Forty other prisoners escaped before the breach was discovered in what remains the largest jailbreak in Memphis history. Nolen, incidentally, was caught the next day; according to the arresting officers, he was found passed out in the back of a taxi on the corner of Mulberry Street and Linden Avenue, "scantily clad and drunk as seven million dollars."
Demolished in 1935, the ornamental iron fence surrounding the property is all that remains.
Hopefully, this will be the only jail you will visit while in Memphis. Please be stealthy when retrieving and replacing. I wish you Good luck, and I hope you enjoy this tid-bit of history as much as the cache!