« Experiencing a Arizona Vacation including the Meteor Crater Center in Flagstaff | Home | Empress Hotel Proves Luxury »

Southwestern Arizona Yuma Prison – Southwestern, Arizona A Fun Arizona Tourism Location

By RomanticHeart | September 13, 2009

Arizona Attraction Video

While you were a child growing up did you dream to play cowboys? Maybe you wanted to be the bad guy rather than the hero wearing the white hat. One of the places you certainly dreamed a little about was the Yuma Territorial State Prison. Here the “really bad guys” were sent to serve out their time in prison. Not only were they inmates but they were also forced to build their own cells!

The prison opened for prisoners on July 1, 1875 with 7 inmates. Those seven had been the inmates constructing the prison. Now, the prison wasn’t picky about who was incarcerated, because there were also 29 ladies that were held at the prison. TB was a problem for the prisoners, one-hundred-eleven died throughout their incarceration at Yuma Territorial Prison. Not someplace that was healthy to be under any circumstance. The prison also was not perfect. Throughout its operation twenty-six inmates escaped. Of the three-thousand that were there over the years that may be a pretty low number but definately not one that looked sharp on reports or with the nearby towns. If they attempted to escape and did not succeed they got the horrid 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 vacations offerings, think about when you dreamed that you wanted to be the bad cowboy – I’m sure you didn’t know all that stuff. You just thought that you could ride into a town on your beautiful horse, rob a bank and then ride out again and go hideout at someplace nice and rich and spend the loot. Not so. Usually the horses that the outlaws had were pretty skanky, no ability to feed them well and groom them, too busy running from 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 off to Yuma (or worse.) Living it up with the money, if you got away, probably wasn’t in the deck either because where could you go that there wouldn’t be opinions about how a dirty trail rider got the money. There are some that did not fit that mold, but probably not many. Probably not the type of life you probably really wanted to live.

The Yuma prison did accomplish some positive things with some of those incarcerated there. Many of the prisoners learned to read and write during their stays. The prison actually had a real library and the inmates got medical care, such as it was at the time. Enjoy this Arizona vacation video:

The prison was operated until 1907 (for a whole thirty-one years) before it became too small, overcrowded and then turned over to other uses. It has now continued life as a school; low cost housing for transients and families left homeless during the Great Depression. Although it was not a place you would long to live in, it was absolutely better than having no facility to use for shelter. Some of the local Yuma people decided that it was a free source for building materials and thus over the years some of the buildings were essentially torn down and so are not part of the historical park today.

Today the Yuma Territorial State Historical Park is used to host several special events during the year including the Gathering of the Gunfighters in January which you should consider attending. It will be a lot of fun. If you arrive at another time of year you may desire to take one of the Haunted Tours during October. There are always Old West re-enactments performed each Sunday from October through April.