WASHBURN - McLean County has the jailhouse blues. Most of the jail was built in 1907, back when bad guys were tossed into the hoosegow and locked up with a heavy skeleton key that hung off a silver ring on the sheriff's belt. Funny thing is - after nearly a century - the sheriff still has to use that old skeleton key that looks more like a Western movie prop than a security device.

McLean County officials think it's time for a new jail.

Tuesday, county voters will give the project thumbs up or down.

They'll vote on whether the county should spend $3.5 million to bring law enforcement out of the last century and into this one.

Les Korgel, county auditor, said the county's taxes wouldn't go up to pay for construction.

He said the county's saved up about $1 million and would go to the Energy Impact Office for a loan to finance the rest.

The loan, which comes from a state-administered trust fund built up with coal severance funds, is paid back from coal severance tax that would normally go to county coffers.

Korgel said about one-fourth of the county's severance tax - $170,000 - would be withheld annually to pay for the jail project until the loan is paid off.

"The only way it could be less financially painful would be if it were free, and that's not going to happen," Korgel said.

The old jail is located right behind the courthouse.

It's yellow-painted brick with a stone foundation that's crumbling in the basement.

It's a cool building, in its way. McLean County State's Attorney Ladd Erickson said it would cost $75,000 to move, though if a new jail were built, someone would be welcome to it.

"Anybody who wants it, could come and get it," he said.

It is on the National Register of Historic Places and before it can be demolished, the county would have to preserve it in photographs and other documentation.

McLean County went through some commotion two years ago over whether to preserve or replace its courthouse over the same historic question. In the end, voters elected to preserve the courthouse and install an elevator, rather than build new.

About 30 years ago, a small wing to the jail was added for dispatch, some offices and a cell area.

In all, it's about 4,000 square feet that has to hold prisoners, administration and sheriff's staff of 20 fulltime deputies going in and out, as well as the Highway Patrol.

The new jail would be 15,000 square feet, with room for 24 prisoners, a forensic lab, offices and space to hold and attend juveniles.

It would prevent circus situations like recently, when one deputy was using the lunch table in the old sheriff's quarters to fingerprint evidence, while another tried to work around him making lunch for prisoners.

Erickson said it would be one thing if criminal matters were as quiet and simple as they were back in 1907.

They're not.

The jail averages six prisoners a day, a number that's been rising in recent years. It can hold 11, unless one or more is female, and then it's off to the old jail facility with the other gender.

The county could get out of the prisoner business altogether, but Korgel and Erickson said it would cost more to house them elsewhere, plus a new sheriff's department is necessary, no matter what.

The county has experimented with housing prisoners elsewhere. It cost $130,000 a year and that was at half the going rate other facilities bill now, Korgel said.

If voters say "no" to the new jail, the county will have to keep sticking money into the old facility and it would still be old, Erickson said.

McLean County has taken good care of the old building, which has the look and feel of a museum piece.

It's just doesn't fit anymore.

There's only one entrance, right into the dispatch area.

So even the most violent of criminals comes directly into a public area, where employees are working.

There is virtually no privacy for visitation, or attorney consultations.

Erickson said his caseload has increased from 400 cases a year four years ago, to more than 600 a year.

McLean County is the third largest county in North Dakota, after McKenzie and Stutsman, with 12 communities policed by sheriff contract, a growing population and all of it sliced up the middle by four-lane Highway 83, which connects to big population centers on either end.

Korgel said there are new and improved subdivisions in Washburn, Wilton, Garrison and Underwood and around Lake Sakakawea and Lake Audubon. In addition, there are several energy construction projects that are expanding the population.

The current jail is Class II, which means prisoners can be housed there for 90 days. The new jail would be a Class I facility and prisoners could be kept for up to one year.

Erickson said the jail's classification sometimes means that sentences are tailored to the jail, rather than to the crime.

"It's just reality. If we have the facility, we can do the right thing as opposed to sentencing based on how much space we have for prisoners," Erickson said.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511, or lauren@;westriv.com.)