Licking County Jail

I am out walking around downtown Newark (Ohio) a couple of weeks ago and I spy this huge black stone edifice.

Boy, did that bring back memories. I knew a guy who got locked up there many years ago. I stopped in to visit once. Went up the stairs to his floor, and at the landing there was a grill-like door. It was locked. Three or four feet farther in there was another door. As I recall, both doors had bars, like you would expect in a jail, but at least one of them was covered with a couple layers of different size mesh. The biggest opening would accommodate a pencil. I heard a story that a visitor had managed to smuggle some smokes into the jail by putting them inside straws and then hooking the straws together, end-to-end, by slipping the end of one straw inside the end of the next. By this method he was able to create a pole about four feet long that he was able to feed through the screen to his partner on the inside. What won't those kids think of next?

Kind of reminds me of something out of Harry Potter, except the sun is shining. I wonder what kind of stone is black, and whether the choice was intentional? Probably. Did not find anything on the net.