While you were a child growing up did you dream to play cowboys? Perhaps you wanted to be the bad guy rather than the hero with the white hat. One of the places you probably heard a little about was the Southwest Arizona Yuma Prison. 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 prison blocks!
The detention facility opened to business on July 1, 1875 with seven prisoners. Those 7 had been the inmates constructing the prison. Now, the prison wasn’t picky about who was there, because there were also 29 women that were incarcerated at the prison. TB was a problem for the prisoners, 111 died during their sentence at Yuma Territorial Prison. Not someplace that was healthy to be under any circumstance. The prison also was not perfect. During its heritage twenty-six prisoners escaped. Of the 3,000 that were imprisoned over the years that may be a very low occurence but absolutely not one that looked good on reports or to the nearby cities. If prisoners attempted to escape and didn’t succeed they received 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, consider 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 city on your prancing horse, knock over a bank and then ride out again and go stay at someplace nice and clean and spend the money. Not so. Normally the horses that the outlaws 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 off to Yuma (or worse.) Living it up with the money, if you got away, probably wasn’t in the deck either since where could you go that there wouldn’t be questions about how a unemployed trail bum got the money. There may have been some that did not fit that sterotype, but probably not many. Probably not the style of lifestyle you probably really wanted to live.
The prison did accomplish some good things with inmates living there. Many of the inmates learned to read and write during their stay. It actually had a small library and the inmates got health care, limited as it was at the time. Enjoy this Arizona Tourism Video:
The territorial prison was used until 1907 (for an entire thirty-one years) before it became too small, overcrowded and then turned over to other uses. It has now continued life as a school; free housing for hobos and families who became homeless during the Great Depression. Although it wasn’t a place you would long to live in, it was certainly 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 many of the buildings were totally demolished 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 visiting. It will 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 every Sunday from October through April.