BEFORE construction of the Ballarat Gaol in 1856, offenders were chained to a large gum tree near the corner of Lydiard and Sturt streets until their case was heard.
If they were found guilty they were taken to Geelong or Melbourne, where they may have served their time on a prison hulk.
Ballarat's historian David Senior said prisons were rare in the early 1800s.
"Jails were usually temporary structures. Disused ships moored in the harbour were used as prison hulks and prisoners would be told sharks circled the ship," he said
In the 1850s, a government inquiry recommended gaol buildings replace the Port Phillip Bay prison hulks. The inquiry recommended using the Pentonvillle system to build the jails.
Jails built using this system had cells in wings or arms projecting from a central hall where a small number of guards could view the whole complex.
The building was designed to hold 74 prisoners, with single cells measuring 3.9m by 2.7m.
There was a tunnel connecting the prison to the courthouse next door, to prevent prisoners escaping en route.
Mr Senior remembers attending the Ballarat Central Technical School, located next to the jail, which closed in 1965, as a teenager.
"We could see the prisoners," Mr Senior said.
"I remember some of the students would throw other students' hats over the fence.
"At the end of the week the headmaster would make one of the kids go next door to the jail and get the hats back."
The site is now part of the University of Ballarat's SMB campus, with the main gates and part of the wall the only telltale signs of its former use.
Ballarat's Geoff Butler, who previously held ghost tours of the city, said a condemned cell, accessed via a trapdoor near the university's library, provided a chilling insight into the life of prisoner.
Mr Butler said executed prisoners were buried in the jail's grounds.
"The first guy that was hanged was buried at the cemetery but, after that, they buried them on site.
"There were 13 hangings at the jail," he said.
Mr Butler said a trumpeter was believed to haunt the former jail.
A remnant of the jail, the gallows, where the 13 men were hanged, is sadly rotting in a Ballarat backyard. Mr Senior is keen to find a home for the gallows, but his search has proved fruitless.
"They're an integral part of history and it's very sad we can't find a home for them," he said.
Ballarat historian Anne Beggs Sunter said a vast array of people had filled the cells over the years.
"From homeless women and children, mentally disturbed people, people charged with drunkenness or obscene language, with petty theft to bushranging and murder," she said.
Ms Beggs Sunter said occasionally men would escape over the walls, notably Captain Moonlite in 1872.
"Captain Moonlite led an incredible double life as a clergyman by day and a bushranger by night," she said.
He escaped and fled to Bendigo, but was captured by police in a bush hut a week later.
"His trial took place at Ballarat on July 24, 1872 before Judge Sir Redmond Berry," Ms Beggs Sunter said.
"It lasted eight days, and Moonlite was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment plus one year, which included one month in irons for escaping."
Ms Beggs Sunter said a particularly awful murder occurred in Ballarat, when James Johnson, a well known stock and station agent, killed his four young children and wife before attempting to kill himself.
On December 9, 1890, he shot his wife in the head with a revolver and then turned on his children.
Medical analysis would later reveal that they were administered a cocktail of poisons.
Today, evidence of the site's former use, is hard to come by and Mr Senior said photos of the old jail were rare.