Arizona Tourism Video
When you were young growing up did you want to play cowboys? Perhaps 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 Park. Where the “really bad guys” were sent to serve out their time in prison. Not only were they inmates but they were also required to construct their own prison blocks!
The prison opened for prisoners on July 1, 1875 with seven inmates. Those seven had been the ones building the prison. Now, the prison was not particular about who was there, because there were also twenty-nine female prisoners that were incarcerated at the prison. TB was a medical problem for the prisoners, one-hundred-eleven died throughout their sentence in Yuma Territorial Prison. Not someplace that was healthy to stay under any circumstance. The prison certainly was not perfect. During its history twenty-six inmates escaped. Of the 3,000 that were imprisoned over the years that may be a very low number but probably not one that looked good on reports or to the nearby towns. If they attempted to escape and did not succeed they received 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 tourism offerings, remember when you decided that you wanted to be the bad cowboy – I’m sure you did not know all that stuff. You just thought that you could ride into a city on your trotting 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 bandits 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 needed to have a really good plan and might very well get shot or caught. If you were caught you were shipped to Yuma (or hung.) Living it up with the money, if you got away, probably wasn’t in the cards either because where could you go that there wouldn’t be opinions about how a unemployed trail bum got the money. There may have been some that did not fit that sterotype, but probably not many. Not the type of lifestyle you probably really wanted to live.
The Yuma prison did accomplish some positive things with prisoners incarcerated there. Quite a few of the prisoners learned to read and write during their stay. It actually had a public library and the prisoners got health care, such as it was at the time. Enjoy this Arizona vacation video:
The prison was operated until 1907 (for an entire 31 years) before it was too small, overcrowded and eventually turned over to other uses. It has now continued life as a school; free lodging for transients and families left homeless during the Great Depression. Although it was not a place you would long to live in, it was certainly better than having no facility to go for shelter. A few of the local Yuma people thought that it was a free source for building materials and so over the years some of the buildings were essentially torn down and now 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 attending. It could be a lot of fun. If you arrive at another time of year you may want to experience one of the Haunted Tours during October. There are always Old West re-enactments done each Sunday from October through April.