Ellis Unit
Prison in Texas
O. B. Ellis Unit (E1, previously Ellis I Unit) is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison located in unincorporated Walker County, Texas, 12 miles (19 km) north of Huntsville. The unit, with about 11,427 acres (4,624 ha) of space, now houses up to 2,400 male prisoners. Ellis is situated in a wooded area shared with the Estelle Unit, which is located 3 miles (4.8 km) away from Ellis. From 1965 to 1999 it was the location of the State of Texas men's death row.
History
The unit opened in July 1965. It was named after Oscar B. Ellis, a former prison director of Texas. George Beto designed the unit, making it to be the strictest prison in the system, and Jim Estelle, the following prison director, continued the course of action Beto established.
From 1965 to 1999 the unit housed the male death row, which had moved from Huntsville Unit. Michael Berryhill, an author, said "You had the toughest convicts, and the general philosophy was you needed the toughest warden. Wallace Pack was assigned to keep the lid on Ellis.
The public source identifies “Ellis Unit” as prison in Texas. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ellis, Unit and Prison.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5366006. Authority coordinates are 30.885, -95.455. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1965 and 1999.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ellis Unit” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.