Like most buildings of its kind, the Old Stone Jail in Ebensburg is foreboding. The section completed in 1872 is a boxy stone Gothic Revival fortress with cell blocks at the rear and a central tower on the facade. Edward Haviland, son of famous prison architect John Haviland, designed it with massing similar to that of his Blair County Prison, but with more powerful rectilinear projections on the facade. In 1910, a long brick cell block was added to the west. The addition's resemblance to a large, barred barracks only increases the dreary mood of the building.