1897, Frederick G. Clausen and Parke T. Burrows. W. 4th St., between Ripley and Scott avenues
At the end of the nineteenth century, Italian architecture, particularly that of Tuscany and Lombardy, increasingly became one of the sources for American architecture. Often, as is the case with the Scott County Jail, there is a Romanesque rather than a Renaissance feel to these American interpretations. The hiproofed tower of the jail building, with its row of three arched windows on each face, is just the sort of image one associates with the smaller cities and rural architecture of northern Italy. In this three-story building with a raised basement, the architects have employed roughly surfaced masonry up to the sills of the third-story windows and then introduced a band of finely surfaced masonry that continues up to the roof soffit.