Central Unit
The approximately 325.8-acre (131.8 ha) facility is 2 miles (3.2 km) from the central part of the city of Sugar Land on U.S. Highway 90A.
[2] Sugar Land Regional Airport was developed adjacent to this unit, with the runway between two parts of the prison property.
In 1878 the state began to lease convicts as laborers to private companies operating on the Imperial Sugar property.
They passed what were known as Black Codes, criminalizing behavior they believed associated with freedmen and charging them fees for convictions, for instance, for so-called vagrancy.
Because in a cash-poor economy, men often couldn't pay the fee, they were required to work off the costs as convict laborers.
[6] In 1963, before racial desegregation occurred, the facility housed first offenders and white male prisoners under 25 years of age.
The City of Sugar Land made moving the facility one of its main priorities for the 2007 state legislative session.
Whitmire said that a prison in that location would be less expensive to operate and would allow the state to alleviate a shortage of correction personnel by consolidating staff members.
[12] In 2007 TDCJ officials said that discussions to move the Central Unit from Sugar Land to Brazoria County were preliminary.
During the same year, Whitmire promoted a bill calling for a study for the feasibility of selling the land of the Central Unit.
[12] By 2008 the city and the state were conducting a joint study researching whether the TDCJ should close the Central Unit and sell the land.
Some residents feared that sexually oriented businesses, such as strip clubs, could open in a light industrial commercial park zone once the prison was closed.
[20] By 2010, due to the expansion of Greater Houston, housing developments such as Chelsea Harbor were constructed within .5 miles (0.80 km) of the prison grounds.
The proximity to Hospital Galveston also allowed for Central Unit prisoners to have convenient access to health care services.
[8] Prisoners grew crops several dozen yards from one of the runways at Sugar Land Regional Airport.
[35] Central Unit included a detergent and soap factory, a mechanic shop, a freight transportation terminal, and farming operations.
[36] Sugar Land Distribution Center (SLDC), a men's correctional facility supply warehouse, was inside the unit.
[37] The Austin American-Statesman said that a cohort of the criminal duo Bonnie and Clyde was said to have lived in a closet within the tower structure.
[40] The City of Sugar Land stated that the acquisition of Smithville was a "key project for the Airport in fiscal year 2010.
[31] In 1932 a concrete housing unit for 600 prisoners opened, replacing wooden barracks that were situated at three work camps.
[6] A Greek Revival brick building of the Central Unit located east of the Brazos River, named Two Camp, opened in 1939.
Don Hudson, a former employee of the Texas Prison System, stated that there were two possible reasons why Two Camp closed.
Newspaper articles of the era said that it was antiquated, and Hudson said that prison officials may have intended to sell the land occupied by Two Camp to private developers.
The earliest are of men arrested on trumped-up charges under the discriminatory Black Codes, in order to supply labor for the state's convict lease system.
This practice was widespread in the South before most states built prisons; some made a large portion of their budgets from convict leasing, which has been called "slavery by another name."
[55] Moore, the founder of the Texas Slave Descendant Society, and others such as anthropologist Fred McGhee, have called for commemoration of the graveyard and its occupants.
It said that a historical marker to be erected at the site of the cemetery would memorialize injustices against African Americans in the Texas prison system during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
[53] As a response, a United States federal agency, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, began an investigation into the issue in early 2014.
[53] In March 2018 an employee doing excavation for the Fort Bend Independent School District near the former prison site, discovered a human bone that was not recent.
The school district notified the Texas Historical Commission that there appeared to be a newly discovered burial ground.
