This former Wharton County Jail is a remarkable survivor. When Heiner's jail (see WD2) was completed in 1889, the existing 1854 building was sold to Margaret Gates and George Q. Rust, who converted it into a house. According to Wharton historian Merle R. Hudgins, the building is of wood construction but was reinforced with a brick exterior casing in 1861. It represents the public building type that prevailed in Texas until displaced by more spatially and decoratively elaborated late-nineteenth-century building types (see PF23, PF27).