O.B. Ellis Unit

A large working-farm prison twelve miles north of Huntsville — the former home of Texas's men's death row, which moved to Polunsky in 1999.

Overview

The O.B. Ellis Unit is a large working-farm prison on FM 980, twelve miles north of Huntsville. TDCJ dates the unit to July 1965, and it houses the full custody range — G1 through G5 plus security detention — with a listed capacity of 2,482 on about 11,427 acres farmed jointly with the Estelle Unit, including a cotton gin, cattle, and egg operations.

Ellis carries two specialized missions that decide who is housed here: it is one of only two TDCJ sites for the Champions Youth Program serving boys ages 14 to 17 (the other male site is Travis County State Jail), and it runs the Gang Renouncement and Disassociation (GRAD) process, the system’s pathway out of security-threat-group classification.

What Makes O.B. Ellis Unit Different

• The death-row history: men’s death row was at Ellis for 34 years before moving to Polunsky in 1999 — a common piece of outdated information about this unit.
• One of two male sites statewide for the Champions Youth Program, with at least ten hours of structured treatment weekly for boys 14-17.
• The GRAD and Returning Population GRAD processes operate here — relevant to families of men working to renounce a gang classification.
• It is a manufacturing site as well as a farm: a bus repair facility, garment factory, and chair factory operate on the unit, and it serves as TDCJ’s Region I maintenance headquarters.
• Lee College teaches academic courses and vocational programs (cabinetmaking, horticulture, HVAC) on site.

Visiting Hours and Procedures

The statewide rules above — approval, ID, prohibited items, and dress code — apply at Ellis. What follows is specific to this unit.

Ellis’s custody mix means the visiting format follows the incarcerated person’s classification — contact visiting for general population, non-contact procedures for restrictive statuses, on the same posted schedule. TDCJ’s standard limits apply: normally one visit per weekly cycle, two-hour regular visits, two adults per visit with children 17 and under not counted, and extended visits of up to four hours may be granted at the warden’s discretion for visitors traveling more than 250 miles one way. Account setup and phone rates are covered in Phone & Video Calls.

Getting There and Parking

Ellis is twelve miles north of Huntsville on FM 980, a rural farm road reached from the I-45 corridor.

TDCJ does not publish visitor parking details for the unit. There is no fixed-route bus service in the area; Brazos Transit District operates shared-ride, advance-reservation service covering Walker County, and the final FM-road segment is by car.

Nearby Services

Services are in Huntsville, not on the rural FM 980 corridor. Huntsville’s hotels cluster along I-45 (Best Western, Holiday Inn Express & Suites, Hampton Inn & Suites, Fairfield Inn & Suites). Hospitality House, at 912 10th Street, is a donation-based guest house specifically for families of people incarcerated in the Texas prison system — it accepts guests Thursday through Saturday nights and recommends early reservations; (936) 291-6196.

Huntsville Memorial Hospital on Memorial Hospital Drive operates a 24-hour emergency room.

For support beyond the unit itself, the Texas Incarcerated Families Association (TIFA) is a statewide nonprofit focused on education, advocacy, and prison-system navigation for families; its helpline is (512) 371-0900.

Learn More

For detailed information about visiting and communicating with someone at a Texas state prison:

• Visiting in Texas — TDCJ approval process, dress code, scheduling
• Mail & Packages — what you can send and what gets rejected
• Phone & Video Calls — Securus accounts, call costs, video visits
• Sending Money — how to add funds to a TDCJ trust account
• Medical & Mental Health — healthcare in TDCJ facilities
• Transfers — what happens during transfers