Prison walls, from Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” to Merle Haggard’s “Sing Me Back Home” and “Mama Tried,” have been a part of lore and lyrics for poets and artists in genres ranging from country to rap.

The walls of the Thomas Country Prison have no echoes bouncing off them. They are silent and within a few months, many of those walls will be torn down for good.

Last year, Thomas County commissioners decided they would no longer support the prison and ended their agreement with the state Department of Corrections. The prison was built nearly 90 years ago. Upkeep and maintenance of the facility was beginning to invoke the law of diminishing returns for the county.

For county prisons, the state pays the local government $20 per day per inmate. In the county commissioners’ estimation, it wasn’t enough to offset the cost of operating the facility. Private prisons, on average, get more than double that amount per inmate.

The prison had been a source for work crews over the years, but commissioners also fretted over the quality of work and the amount of work the inmates had been providing. It’s been a different class of prisoner to be incarcerated at the prison recently. Those housed there did not have the work ethic or background of previous inmates, some commissioners lamented. Should a need for work crews arise, other nearby correctional institutions have made the offer to provide details.

It is a stern and foreboding place. Ringed with fences topped with razor wire, the insides of the prison are cordoned off with thick walls and hefty metal bars. But as an aging facility, it’s also facing major deterioration and replacing the prison with a new one likely would have cost in the tens of millions of dollars, a price commissioners didn’t want to try to float on any new special purpose local option sales tax.

The county offered employees severance packages and many took positions within in the state system. Some opted for retirement or other employment. Even with the severances, the county expects to see a gain from not spending money on the prison.

“In next year’s budget, we will see a savings by closing the prison,” Commissioners Wiley Grady said.

While certainly some of the place’s history should be preserved, the next question is to what do with the property once the majority of the building has been demolished. The various county departments and agencies are lining up to remove whatever items have been left behind, a variety of chairs, desks, box fans, radios, freezers, etc., to be put to another use. The possibility of turning part of the land into a firing range for local law enforcement — soon to lose their target area to a coming public shooting range — has been discussed. We hope in time the county also determines a good use for the property.