C. A. Holliday Transfer Facility

Richard Watkins, a senior African-American prison warden, led an effort to have a prison named for C. A. Holliday, an African-American community activist and pastor in the Huntsville area. Watkins sent many letters to Governor of Texas Ann Richards, asking her to name a prison after Holliday. opened in January 1994. Cigarette smoking at Holliday was forbidden since the facility's opening, while a TDCJ-wide smoking ban, stemming from a November 18, 1994 Texas Board of Criminal Justice unanimous decision to forbid smoking at all TDCJ facilities, began on March 1, 1995. ==Facility==

Holliday, an industrial-scale complex, has sheet metal siding and low sloping roofs. Robert Perkinson, author of ''Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire'', said that the "hastily-constructed" transfer unit "looks like an assemblage of discount tire outlets," and that the only features that indicate that it is a prison is the razor wire and guard towers. Jim Willett, a Huntsville resident and a former warden, said that Holliday is "a giant tin barn that serves as Texas's prison purgatory, the place you go between jail and the real thing." ==References==