Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) a prison.

1792		J. Pope Tour Southern and Western Territories 43: Their Fate will be confinement [...] in the Callibouse at Mobille [DA].
1819		A. Singleton Letters from the South and West 123: The calabose, [in New Orleans,] whither all vagrants, taken after the nine o’clock signal gun is fired, are sent.
1826		T. Flint Recollections 208: The commandant, a priest, a file of soldiers, and a calaboza, made up the engine of Government.
1835		J.H. Ingraham South-West i 111: We passed the famous Calaboos, or Calabozo, the city prison, so celebrated by all seamen who have made the voyage to New-Orleans.
1839		Maumee City Exp. (OH) 23 Mar. 2/2: Oh, isn’t it a pity such a pretty lad as you should be sent to a calaboose.
1840		R.H. Dana Two Years before the Mast (1992) 177: The poor fellow was seized at once, clapped into the calabozo.
1846		D. Corcoran Pickings from N.O. Picayune (1847) 11: He would have to rusticate in the calaboose for twenty-four hours.
1855		T. Haliburton Nature and Human Nature I 51: It is nothing but a large calaboose, chock full of prisoners.
1869		N.O. Picayune 30 June: n.p.: More than thirty men were last night confined in the calaboose, and with the present imperfect arrangements there, their sufferings must have been well-nigh intolerable.
1879		Ford County Globe 9 Sept. in Miller & Snell Why the West was Wild 35: He was first taken to the calaboose.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler (1996) 47: We were both arrested and taken to the station-house, or calaboose.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 14: Calaboose, a prison.
1897		A.H. Lewis Wolfville 149: The calabose is dry, an’ what you-alls might call, commodious. It’s a slam-up camp.
1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 229: The Town Marshal arrested him for Swindling and led him over to the Calaboose.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 317: I s’pose he’s been fourflushin’ around with that gun of his, an’ been took to the calaboose.
1908		Walter Stephens ‘Money’ 🎵 The Judge said twenty / Years in the calliboos.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 27: He went from the calaboose, we released ourselves from the cell and left the jail.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 79: The big bum now led us out and to a near-by box car that served as a calaboose.
1931		Ade Old-Time Saloon 6 7: The parade which trailed behind the Town Marshal and the combative drunk, up Main Street towards the ‘calaboose,’ was a frequent spectacle.
1938		D. Runyon ‘Princess O’Hara’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 438: It gets me three years in the calabozo.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 252: If policeman see me, me go calaboose.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 65: The terrified Negroes are soon robbed of their money as a bribe to avoid being locked up and ‘lost’ in a Southern calaboose.
1966		M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 50: You git in the calaboose down here, buddy, you just rot.
1981		G. Young Slow Boats to China (1983) 91: The man who threaten with knife is in calaboose, mister.
1995		J. Lansdale Two-Bear Mambo (1996) 2: You got to stop him before they haul his black ass to the calaboose.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 262: Spent their share of time in the calaboose.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 36/1: calaboose, the n. a prison.