The Detention Center
County Jail
- Operated byMontague County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameYes, but only as "County Jail" — the Sheriff's Office site carries a menu item and a page titled "County Jail". The county's own Sheriff page heads a phone block "Jail".
- Jail phone940-894-2871
- Capacity statementThe Sheriff's Office homepage says the office patrols more than 900 square miles and is "authorized to house more than 100 inmates"
- Roster"Inmates In Custody" in the Sheriff's Office menu, hosted at http://findtheinmate.com/montague
- Courthouse11339 TX-59, Montague, TX 76251
- What was triedhttps://www.co.montague.tx.us/page/montague.sheriff ; http://www.montaguesheriff.com/ ; http://www.montaguesheriff.com/detention-center.html ; http://www.montaguesheriff.com/approved-bail-bonds.html ; http://www.montaguesheriff.com/mail---commissary.html
- Beds and population, 2026-0838 people held in 101 rated beds
Source: Montague County Sheriff's Office — home · checked 2026-08-22
Transparency rating
3/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗How to post bond — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- BedsNot published as a number; the Sheriff's Office homepage says only that it is "authorized to house more than 100 inmates"
Since then
- Not found
The Sheriff
Sheriff Marshall Thomas
- Published as"Sheriff Marshall Thomas"
- MailingP.O. Box 127, Montague, Texas 76251
- Administration940-894-2491; fax 940-894-2114
- Jail940-894-2871; fax 940-894-2004
- Sheriff's Office sitewww.montaguesheriff.com
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Montague County — County Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
Two Justices of the Peace, each with a separate page: montague.JP1 and montague.JP2 under https://www.co.montague.tx.us/page/. There is no County Court at Law. The 97th District Court sits at 101 East Franklin, Montague.
County Judge
- Kevin Benton
District Court
- Trish Coleman Byars (97th District Court)
Justices of the Peace
- Stefanie Horton (Pct. 1)
- Glen Neff (Pct. 2)
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-22
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Capacity is marked "no": "authorized to house more than 100 inmates" is a statement of authorisation, not a published bed count, and no daily population figure is published.
- The Sheriff's Office site menu carries "Approved Bail Bonds", "Mail & Commissary" and "Visitation Schedule" pages. Those pages would not load on repeated attempts from this network (503 from the fetch path), so bond_info and fees are recorded "no" rather than cited from a page that was never read. The "County Jail" page did load far enough to confirm its title.
- The county's Commissioners' Court minutes link resolves to a bare IP address, http://173.185.183.206/easydocs/minutes/index.asp — it loads, but it is an odd hosting arrangement for a public record.
- Budgets, check registers, treasurer reports and annual financial reports are all published under Financial Transparency.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Roy Darden, Precinct 2 Mike Mayfield, Precinct 3 Mark Murphey, Precinct 4 Bob Langford; County Judge Kevin Benton.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
No death in the Montague County jail appears on the state's record since 2016.
Deaths: Texas Justice Initiative, the cleaned copy of the Texas Attorney General’s custodial death reports — the state’s own public index carries no cause of death and has not been refreshed since August 2025. Population: Texas Commission on Jail Standards monthly report. Counted, not estimated.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Montague County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-08-22 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered