Please join me in welcoming Jeremy Janz and Sonia Martinez of The Texas Jailhouse In 2013 Jeremy Janz purchased the Historic Anderson County Jail in Palestine Texas This lead to a business partnership with Sonia Martinez which established Texas Jailhouse Little did they know it was located in the third oldest town in Texas and how it would impact them with its paranormal activity History lessons were extensive The 11000 squarefoot solid concrete and steel old jail seemed to be a center of this history This sacred land of hills between the Trinity and Neches Rivers belonged to Caddo Indians In 1819 just a few hundred yards down the hill from the Texas Jailhouse an Indian trading post brought in the first of Palestines settlers After the Texas Annexation in 1846 land around the top of the hill was deemed the geographical center of a new county named Anderson The town would be named Palestine after the hometown of one of its first settlers from Palestine Illinois One of which was Daniel Parker whose family was infamously attacked at Fort Parker by Comanche and Kiowa tribes in 1836 capturing Cynthia Ann Parker 1880 brought a new railroad to Palestine securing an ironclad agreement that would become the lifeline to keep Palestine alive With the railroad came citizens commerce and crime There are endless stories of gunfights murders public hangings railroad robberies and political injustices However the crime would not deter tens of thousands of visitors from all over the country from visiting In the late 1980s it was necessary to designate many of Palestines historic buildings and homes as nationally recognized historic places for preservation purposes The City Cemetery held over 60000 graves This included unknown Confederate soldiers along with Palestines first slaves and settlers It is no wonder Palestine is a paranormal hub It did not take long after exploring the jail for Sonia to experience her first en

By Michael Kopf