A Jail Traded for a Cow Ended Up at Heritage Village

Heritage Village sits at 900 East Coliseum Drive near the WTC Coliseum. Its collection mixes historic buildings with replicas, artifacts, and exhibits. The City of Snyder describes a free self-guided tour, so the place works as an outdoor county history walk rather than a single museum room.

The collection began with the A. D. Dodson home. A Snyder savings and loan donated the house in January 1979 on the condition that it be moved and preserved. Because the county historical commission could not own property, Historic Scurry County, Inc. formed on October 21, 1980, to take on the work.

The Dodson house moved to the Coliseum grounds on April 6, 1981, and a formal opening followed in June 1984. The two-room Dermott School and Hermleigh calaboose later joined it.

The calaboose carries the sharpest small-building story. Built in 1913, the 8-by-10-foot jail served Hermleigh until 1920. In the early 1920s, D. R. Layman and his wife traded a cow for it and used it for storage. The family donated it for preservation in 1971, and it moved to Heritage Village in 1993.

The grounds also hold the Dunn community post office, the Fluvanna barbershop, an Eclipse windmill, a 1900 ranch bunkhouse, replica buildings, and bricks salvaged from the courthouse square. A county's past survives here at building scale: a house, a school, a jail, a post office, and the paving underfoot.