“Over the years our little jailhouse has become a popular landmark. Built in 1939 during the timber boom days in Port Orford and condemned in 1965, it has since been left to nature’s artistic hand.

Becky Flake, ENJOY PORT ORFORD
The World (Coos Bay, Oregon) · 21 Mar 1939
The World (Coos Bay, Oregon) · 21 Mar 1939
The World (Coos Bay, Oregon) · 3 Aug 1939
The Historic Port Orford Jail
Port-Orford-Jail-I-September-2006-Nix
Port Orford Jail Pre-Haircut, September 2006. Photo by Lance Nix.
Port Orford Jail, September 2006. Photo by Lance Nix.
Port Orford Jail. Photo by Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archive
Port Orford Jail Gets A Haircut, Sept 2011. Photo by Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archive

Artist Rick Cook remembers: “Back in the 80’s or so, during the 4th July, ‘Deputies’ cruised the streets looking for locals that had not bought a Jubilee pin. They would arrest them and hall them to the jail. They would lock you up there till you bought a pin. Bobby Sweet’s wife, Shelly and her sisters arrested me one time but let me go after I bought a pin. I didn’t have to go to jail.”

A rare view from above the Old Port Orford Jail before it was restored and repainted.
In 2015 private citizens restored the Old Jail as part of a restoration effort.