Pender County Tourism Office, The Old Pender County Jail

The Old Pender County Jail, 106 East Wilmington Street

The Old Jail building sits under the Burgaw water tower, it is home to offices of the Pender County Tourism Department. With steel bars on the top floor windows, the Old Pender County Jail holds the history of murderers, thieves, and the memories of the family that once lived there.

The building was built in 1924 and formerly served as the Pender County Jail until 1977. The building is a two-story stucco brick building. The second story of the building housed up to 21 prisoners. The downstairs area was the living area for the jailer and his family. The living area also doubled as an office for booking prisoners.

There were two notable breakouts during the history of the jail. In 1971, two prisoners brought to the jail from Raleigh’s Central Prison rushed a guard, knocking him down and escaped. The inmates were tracked by bloodhounds and captured in town about 45 minutes later. Four prisoners in 1975 were involved in an attempted jailbreak. The inmates overpowered a deputy, took his gun, and held him hostage. Shots were fired in the struggle leaving bullet holes in a metal cell door that is still evident today. The situation was resolved when the inmates surrendered. In the summer of 2013, the Town of Burgaw and Pender County teamed up to renovate and jointly use the building. This project was to renovate the first floor only, leaving the second floor containing the jail cells mainly untouched.

Every old jail has a past.

With the jail cells remaining, this building has been used for filming over the years, the Old Historic Pender County Jail building has been used for many scenes in films and television series filmed around town, and used in the filming of such movie about the history of the old jail in "The Jailhouse", written and funded by a young local filmmaker.

"The Jailhouse" is a story about a deputy sheriff as he begins taking on the characteristics of his century-old predecessor after moving his family to a house once used to house prisoners, the old jail that occupied the 2nd floor of their century-old home.

The renovated conference room was also used as the office for Marg Helgenberger in an episode of Under the Dome.