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The courthouse was built of adobe, in a 'U' shape around a courtyard with a high wall and gate enclosing the courtyard. The building was covered with moderately pitched gable roofs, and had numerous doors and double hung windows facing onto the surrounding landscape. (Edwards, 36) The courthouse and jail occupied the current site of the Jeff Davis County Courthouse and were accepted by the county on May 29th. The Presidio courthouse was nicknamed the 'Bat Cave Courthouse.' It is uncertain whether this name was inherited from the previous jail which was actually just a bat infested cellar under a house or whether the name refers to the jail built beneath the sheriff's office in the new courthouse, accessible only from a trap door in the floor. In the county history by Cecilia Thompson, a vivid 1880 description from an unknown source is given: The jail at Fort Davis was of Mexican model, and was little less than a dungeon. The main building was a square, adobe structure, with the rooms in the center and doors opening on the outside into the courtyard. The jail was in one corner of the building, and blasted out of the solid rock to a proper depth, then covered over the top by strong timbers securely fastened. The egress was a trap door. No light was there. And into this place of utter darkness the captured outlaws were placed. (Thompson, vol. 1, 156) By May of 1883, county officials decided that the 1880 courthouse was already unfit for use. The Commissioners voted to advertise for the location and construction of a new courthouse and jail in the Apache Rocket, a Fort Davis newspaper. In June of that year, the court deemed the present building insufficient and unfit for use, and condemned the structure. They declared, 'Imperative necessity exists for the building of a new courthouse and jail.' (Commissioner's Court Minutes, 6/11/1883) Again the court advertised in the local newspaper as well as the San Antonio Express. The Commissioners requested: 'Said courthouse to be two stories high and the jail to be strong and durable, with all modern improvements and one story high. The courthouse to have a large room upstairs for the purposes of a courtroom and also two rooms for jury rooms. The lower story to be cut up into offices for the different county officers. Said building to have proper ventilation and communication- Said buildings to be of rock and the jail of large rock. Said buildings not to exceed $30,000 in cost.' The bids were opened August 13, 1883. The following day all of the bids for the construction of a new courthouse and jail were rejected. No further mention of new court facilities is made in the records until the county seat was relocated to Marfa in 1885. It is likely that this building later became the first courthouse for Jeff Davis County when it was organized around Fort Davis in 1887.
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