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SOLD! Hickman County auctions off detention center
The Jones family of Hudson Florida now own a jail.

(Clinton, KY) - An era ended this hot July evening with the bang of an auctioneer's gavel. The Hickman County Detention Center sold at auction relieving the Hickman Fiscal Court of the maintenance and upkeep of the building.

In a move that auctioneer James R. Cash described as a sale his company had never handled before, the Fiscal Court put the building up for absolute auction. The winning bidders got the 14,000 square feet block building lock, stock and barrel.

A crowd of about 50 showed up to watch as James R. Cash, shown at right, warbled out bid numbers starting at $50,000. By the time the bidding closed, a Florida family came away winners.

The Jones family, father Tommy Lee Jones and his two sons Bryan Thomas Jones and Tom Jones outbid the competition. Tommy described his family business as electrical contractor in Hudson Florida. Their bid of $110,000 was enough to close the bidding.

When asked how a family from the Gulf coast of Florida found Clinton Kentucky, the senior Jones revealed his family was the purchasers of the Cayce School in Fulton County which sold at auction for a similar amount several months ago. Jones heard of the jail auction and decided to "buy if it's not too expensive." Even with spirited bidding, the price proved not too high.

Jones was unsure what use the newest acquisition would have. His primary concern is rehabbing the Cayce site into a bed and breakfast and RV park. His goal is to open Cayce School in its new form on January 1, 2018.

County Judge Kenny Wilson and the three members of the Hickman Fiscal Court - Corey Naranjo, Henry Cole and Irvin Stroud, were in attendance at the auction. The detention center still has a debt of $1.6 million dollars. The facility costs the county approximately $160,000 yearly in payments and that debt was not discharged by the sale. But Irvin Stroud was optimistic because the count would be relieved of utilities and maintenance on it.

The detention center has been a center of attention since 2014 when the subject of closing it first came up. Then Judge Greg Pruitt deferred selling it until a new administration was elected. Jail gets stay of execution - April 2014

The vote to close the facility finally came in 2015. Despite community pride in having a local facility and the jobs lost when the jail closed, the fiscal court pulled the plug. Hickman County Fiscal Court votes to close detention center - August 2015

The failure of the detention center was blamed primarily on a lack of state prisoners. There were never enough county prisoners to keep the facility full enough to pay its own way.

Now the Hickman County Detention Center is no more and prisoners go to Fulton County's Detention Center - another troubled facility that has recently been hit with scandal and a tornado touch down. With a new jailer and work progressing on repairs, Fulton County's detention center seems to be getting back to full capacity.


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