First Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Cleveland, Tennessee (Tennessee-Georgia Presbytery) bought the old Bradley County Jail on Second Avenue in Cleveland more than 20 years ago. The church used the space for offices and classrooms and operated a popular Halloween “haunted house” in the jail for several years.

Cleveland’s pastor, the Reverend Jennifer Newell, said, “It has been lots of fun telling people I have an office in a jail…but less fun when it rains inside the windows or when the mold blooms on the walls (and through the pictures on the walls) or when you have to meet with someone in a parking lot because the stairs are too steep…or when the downtown storm water system backs up and the whole building smells like an untended hamster cage and there is no window to open to get fresh air.”

Costs to renovate the 1935 structure and make it accessible are estimated to be more than a million dollars. Newell says the money would be better spent serving the community. The church’s session wants the site turned into an outdoor classroom and a playground, a decision Newell wholeheartedly supports.

“Main Street Cleveland,” a non profit organization dedicated to the revitalization and promotion of historic downtown Cleveland, has claimed the old jail is on the National Register of Historic Places, which it is not. Rather, the old jail is within a Cleveland historic district. It is not architecturally significant nor does it carry any sort of historic protection.