The county jail at Dover has gone up in flames six times, to wit, in the years 1820, 1830, 1846, 1856, 1862, and 1897. On the first occasion, the only occupant, a Negro man, was fatally burned. Federal soldiers reduced it to ashes in 1862. On the last occasion, three Negro inmates went to a searing death in it. From 1856 to 1860, the county had no jail. During that period prisoners were for the first two or three years kept in the Clarksville jail and thereafter in a steel cage purchased by the county and placed in one of the rooms of the court house in Dover. The present jail, a two-story brick building, was erected in 1897.

Dover's first newspaper, the Dover Record, of which James P. Flood was editor, appeared for the first time February 2, 1870. The Record was succeeded by the Dover Courier , established by C. W. Crockett in 1877. The only newspaper now published in the interest solely of Stewart County is the Stewart- Houston Times, of which the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle is the publisher.

A subscription school was opened in Dover by John Ferrell in 1806. In 1820 a splendid brick school building was erected but was destroyed along with practically the entire town during the Civil War. Alexander Coppedge taught school in Dover in 1826. In 1830, a school in which all the lower branches were taught was established, and in 1840 a male and female academy in which all the higher branches were taught was established by Professor McDougal. This was a brick building which cost about $2,500. A modern high school building was erected in Dover in the year 1949 at an approximate cost of $400,000.