Submitter’s note: The story we are sharing with you today is part of an interview with Jason Skinner that appeared in the Brown County Democrat on Aug. 26, 1971.

Jason Skinner, “Jase,” didn’t always sit out in front of the old log jail, inviting visitors to come in and see the two-headed calf and the other curiosities and antiques.

In fact, he’s only been there four years, against the jail’s 92 years. But Jase goes back a long way in Brown County history — back to 1886, when he was born “over by the far side of the park” in an area known as Kelp.

Since that time, the still-lively Skinner has been a farmer, a lumberman, custodian of the Nashville House and its stables and grounds, a railroad tie inspector, and a Baptist circuit preacher, besides supervising the building of Yellowwood, Bear Creek and Ault lakes for the government during the Depression.

Skinner has always called Brown County home, although his logging activities took him far and wide through Indiana, Kentucky, southern Illinois and Tennessee.

Looking at the old jail, built in 1879 when the county was young, Skinner recalls events during its years of use.

“This whole jail’s an antique, and everything in it, including me,” he observes to a tourist. It’s been filled with antiques since 1911, he says, when the sheriff finishing his term leased it from the county commissioners, organized it as a museum, and opened it to the public.

A display of federal pre-1800 money and a loom, said to have been used by Martha Washington, are among these original antiques still to be seen at the jail.

“The jail was used once later for a local bootlegger during prohibition,” Skinner says. “He didn’t want to serve his 90 days in the modern jail at Franklin, and the new jail wasn’t done yet, so they gave him a key and he moved in the log jail.

“During the day, he’d go over to the sheriff’s house to work and get his meals and firewood, then go back to the jail, lock himself in, and go to bed.”

Not many prisoners were kept in the jail over the years, says Skinner. His uncle, George Roberts, was sheriff in 1906 and “never had a prisoner for a whole year.”

About Roberts, Skinner says, “He just took a notion to run for sheriff. He ran and he got elected. He did the work with horse and buggy — for the county and the town, he done it all — 1906 through 1910.”

Nashville at that time was “just a mudline, no streets or sidewalks.”

There was never a jail break, but at least one was attempted, says Skinner, pointing to a sawed-apart bar on the inner door. They didn’t have the right tools in those days, even with help from the outside.

A wood-burning stove heated the room, with the pipe extended through to the second floor and out the roof. Beams are charred from years of overheating around the pipe. Men were kept downstairs and women up above.

Several items in the building bring back memories of past events to Skinner, including the still on exhibit upstairs.

“I was on the jury during prohibition when they tried some boys for having that still. Me and another man hung the jury.” Why? “They didn’t have enough evidence, just that they dug it up on their property, and anyone could have buried it. Besides, another man turned them in to get out of it himself. Also one juror said right off, ‘Well, we got a chance to get rid of them; let’s send them up.’ That didn’t seem right to me. The second jury acquitted them in three hours.

“There were lots of stills in those days. When we would be out timbering in the woods and saw smoke rising, the boys would say, there goes another still.” He never came across one himself, but Skinner said, “I never went looking for one.”

Jason Skinner, known by family and friends as Jase, reminisced about growing up on the farm in the little village of Kelp and recalls his school days as the happiest days of his life. He tells about going to pick up their mail. The nearest post office was in Pikes Peak, five miles away. He tells us that a post office eventually came to Kelp.

Jason Nathaniel Skinner was born March 28, 1886, the son of James and Anna Roberts Skinner. Jason died Wednesday, Jan. 11, 1978.

Submitted by Pauline Hoover, Brown County Historical Society