Linn County Sheriff Jim Smith didn’t report for duty on Jan. 2, 1965, for the first time in 30 years. Smith, whose term of office spanned from nabbing rustlers during the Depression to catching lawbreakers using radar and two-way radios, was defeated in the November election by Walter Grant.
Among the many interesting facts about Smith during his tenure as sheriff, is that he and his wife, Alice, and their family lived in an apartment at the east end of the jail.
Sheriff Smith started a garden and a small orchard during the Depression to help feed the prisoners and provide a rudimentary “work-release” for some prisoners.
Alice Smith, 1960
Alice Smith, with institutional equipment in her kitchen, cooked for the prisoners as well as her family. She also served as jail matron.
Sheriff Grant and his family opted not to reside at the jail, so the apartment was remodeled into offices. The Smiths were the last family to reside on May’s Island.
Even though a new Iowa law in 1965 made the Board of Supervisors responsible for feeding the inmates, Mrs. Grant and Chief Jailer’s wife, Mrs. Robert Glynn, continued to plan and prepare meals for prisoners.
He was a real Sheriff, but if you harmed Jim Smith’s ducks around the island, the saying “you would be in deep trouble”. Well I rode my Schwinn Travler down to the Crandic 4th Ave Street Car bridge and fish off the bank for Carp with sweet corn but ducks like sweet corn too. As I said Sheriff Jim had his ducks and they seem well fed but they were always trying to get our sweet corn so I had to be extra careful that didn’t catch a duck and I DIDN’T. That was 1953 to 1954 and I was 12 to 14. They should have never discontinued Street Car service to Iowa City, but they did in 1954. Why fish for carp? because they were fighters and then I released them – oh might have ate 1 or 2, but my mom told me not to bring them home as they were to bony. That Street Car stopped almost in front of our family house near 6th St. I would bet the tracks are still buried below the surface of 4th ave.
By: James Knigge on March 19, 2009
at 5:41 pm