Yuma Territorial State Prison – Yuma, Arizona A Fascinating Arizona Tourism Location

While you were 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 probably heard a little about was the Yuma Territorial Prison State Historical Park. Here the “really bad guys” were taken to serve out their time in prison.
Not only were they prisoners but they were also forced to build their own cells!

The prison opened for business on July 1, 1875 with 7 inmates. Those 7 had been the ones building the prison. Now, the prison wasn’t picky about who was there, because there were also 29 women that were held at the prison. TB was a problem for the prisoners, 111 died during their time in Yuma Territorial Prison. Not someplace that was healthy to be under any circumstance. The prison also wasn’t perfect. During its history 26 inmates escaped. Of the 3,000 that were there over the years that’s a pretty low number but probably not one that looked good on reports or with the neighboring towns. If they attempted to escape and didn’t succeed they got the horrid ball and chain to keep 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 bet 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 stay at someplace nice and clean and spend the money. Not so. Usually the horses that the outlaws had were pretty skanky, no time to feed them well and groom them, too busy staying ahead of the law. To rob a bank you had to have a pretty good plan and might very well get shot or caught. 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 cards either since where would you go that there wouldn’t be questions about how a dirty trail bum got the money. There may have been 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 good things with some of those living there. Many of the inmates learned to read and write during their stays. It actually had a public library and the prisoners got medical care, such as it was at the time. Enjoy the Arizona Vacation Video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbbO5VO5T_w

The prison was used until 1907 (so a whole 31 years) before it was too small, overcrowded and then turned over to other uses. It has a continued life as a school; free lodging for hobos and families left homeless by the Great Depression. Although it wasn’t someplace you would long to live it was certainly better than having no place to go for shelter. Some of the local Yuma people decided that it was a free source for building materials and so over the years some of the buildings were totally destroyed and so are not part of the historical park today.

Today the Yuma Territorial State Historical Park is used to host several special events throughout the year such as the Gathering of the Gunfighters in January which you should think about visiting. It could be a lot of fun. If you are there at another time of year you may want to take one of the Haunted Tours during October. There are also Old West re-enactments done every Sunday from October through April.

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