The Texas Monthly Terquasquicentennial Blog

Huntsville Unit, Huntsville | February 8, 1924

Prior to 1924, executions in Texas were carried out—hanging was the usual method—by individual counties. But in 1923 the Legislature authorized the use of the electric chair and ordered that all executions take place at the penitentiary in Huntsville, also known as the Walls Unit for its tall walls of red brick. A brand-new, prisoner-built electric chair (later known as Old Sparky) was installed in an area of the unit located off what is now the infirmary, and on February 8 a man named Charles Reynolds, from Red River County, was the first to be put to death. That same day, Ewell Morris, George Washington, Mack Mathews, and Melvin Johnson would be electrocuted as well. (These first five also represent the most executions carried out by the state in a single day.) Old Sparky was in commission for forty years, until 1964, when Joseph Johnson of Harris County became the last man executed in Texas with the electric chair. Starting with Reynolds, Texas has put a total of 825 individuals to death, hundreds more than any other state. And though the method has changed (lethal injections began in 1982), all of them have drawn their last breaths at the Walls Unit. —DC