Yuma Territorial State Prison – Yuma, Arizona A Fascinating Arizona Vacation Location
March 3rd, 2009 Posted in Outdoors
When you were young growing up did you want to play cowboys? Maybe you wanted to be the bad guy instead of the hero with the white hat. One of the places you certainly heard a little about was the Yuma Territorial Prison State Park. Where the “really bad guys” were taken to serve out their time in prison. Not only were they inmates but they were also forced to build their own cells!
The Yuma prison opened to prisoners on July 1, 1875 with seven prisoners. Those seven had been the ones constructing the prison. Now, the prison was not particular about who was incarcerated, because there were also 29 ladies that were detained at the prison. TB was a problem for the prisoners, 111 died throughout their incarceration in Yuma Territorial Prison. Not somewhere that was healthy to stay under any circumstance. The prison certainly wasn’t perfect. Throughout it’s history twenty-six inmates escaped. Of the three-thousand that were there over the years that may be a pretty low number but probably not one that looked good on reports or with the neighboring cities. If they attempted to escape and did not succeed they got a painful ball and chain to prevent them from trying again. Not a particularly comfortable way to try to walk around.
So, while you are checking out Arizona vacation offerings, remember when you decided that you wanted to be the bad cowboy – I’m sure you did not know all that stuff. You probably thought that you could ride into a city on your prancing horse, rob a bank and then ride out again and go hideout at someplace nice and clean and spend the loot. Not so. Usually the horses that the bandits had were pretty skanky, no ability to feed them properly and groom them, too rushed staying ahead of the law. To knock off a bank you had to have a pretty good plan and might very well get shot or killed. If you were caught you were sentenced to Yuma (or worse.) Living it up with the money, if you got away, probably wasn’t in the cards either since where would you go that there would not be opinions about how a dirty trail bum had the money. There are some that did not fit that mold, but probably not many. Not the type of life you probably really wanted to live.
The prison did accomplish some positive things with prisoners incarcerated there. Many of the prisoners learned to read and write during their stays. It actually had a real library and the prisoners received health care, limited as it was at the time. Enjoy this Arizona Tourism Video:
The territorial prison was operated until 1907 (so an entire 31 years) before it was too small, overcrowded and then turned over to other uses. It has now continued life as a school; free housing for transients and families left homeless by the Great Depression. Although it was not a place you would long to live at, it was certainly better than having no place to go for shelter. A few of the local Yuma residents decided that it was a free source for building supplies and so over the years many of the buildings were totally torn down and so are not part of the historical park today.
Today the Yuma Territorial State Historical Park is used to host a variety of special events during the year including the Gathering of the Gunfighters in January which you should consider visiting. It could be a lot of fun. If you arrive at another time of year you may desire to experience one of the Haunted Tours during October. There are always Old West re-enactments done every Sunday from October through April.