Mail & Photos to Gurney. Beto Is 1385's Neighbor at 1391

Same Road as Beto, Different City

Gurney shares one 20,528-acre property with the Coffield, Michael, Powledge and Beto units, and the addresses reflect that in a way that trips people up.

Unit	Address	City and ZIP
Joe F. Gurney Transfer Facility	1385 FM 3328	Palestine, TX 75803
George Beto Unit	1391 FM 3328	Tennessee Colony, TX 75880
Louis C. Powledge Unit	1400 FM 3452	Palestine, TX 75803
H.H. Coffield Unit	2661 FM 2054	Tennessee Colony, TX 75884
Mark W. Michael Unit	2664 FM 2054	Tennessee Colony, TX 75886

Gurney and Beto are six street numbers apart on the same farm-to-market road, and TDCJ files them under different cities with different ZIP codes. Gurney and Powledge share a city and ZIP but sit on different roads. TDCJ’s own page adds to the confusion by giving Gurney a Palestine address while describing its location as six miles south of Tennessee Colony, and the facility’s 2018 PREA audit lists it under Tennessee Colony 75861 altogether.

For most letters this matters less than it used to, because personal mail no longer goes to any of these addresses. It matters a great deal for the things that still do.

What the Dallas PO Box Changes

TDCJ routes personal mail through a Digital Mail Processing Center. Letters, greeting cards and photos go here:

Texas Department of Criminal Justice
[Full First and Last Name] [TDCJ Number]
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400

The center scans each item in color and delivers it to his tablet, normally within about three business days. People without a tablet receive printed copies. Scanned originals are held for 90 days and then destroyed, unless you enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope to have the original returned.

Two details decide whether a letter arrives. The envelope needs his full commitment name, the name TDCJ has on record and not one he goes by, and his eight-digit TDCJ number. Mail missing either is returned to sender.

These still go to the unit in Palestine, not to Dallas: legal mail, special mail, media correspondence, business and agency correspondence, packages, publisher-direct books and magazines, and government checks. Anything needing his signature goes to the unit addressed care of the Law Library. This split is where several competing guides are still wrong, and where the Beto address six numbers up the road becomes a genuine risk.

A note on books. TDCJ’s own page contradicts itself: the prose says books and magazines go to the unit, while the routing table on the same page lists books under digital mail. Confirm at (903) 928-3118 before sending a book.

If printing and posting is the hard part, Pigeonly is another way to do it. You upload a letter or photos from your phone and we print and mail them to the facility under that prison’s mail rules, so there is no printer, no stamps and no trip to the post office. It sits alongside the official postal route above and does not replace it, and the Dallas address is still where the letter physically goes.