Southwestern Arizona Yuma Prison – Coastal, Arizona A Fun Arizona Tourism Location
When 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 certainly dreamed a little about was the Southwest Arizona Yuma Prison. Here the “really bad guys” were taken to serve out their time in prison. Not only were they inmates but they were also required to build their own cells!
The prison opened for business on July 1, 1875 with seven prisoners. Those seven had been the inmates building the prison. Now, the prison wasn’t particular about who was incarcerated, because there were also twenty-nine ladies that were held at the prison. TB was a problem for the prisoners, 111 died during their time at Yuma Territorial Prison. Not someplace that was healthy to be under any circumstance. The prison also was not perfect. Throughout its heritage 26 inmates escaped. Of the three-thousand that were there over the years that is a pretty low number but absolutely not one that looked good on reports or with the nearby towns. If prisoners attempted to escape and did not succeed they received the 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 vacations offerings, consider when you dreamed that you wanted to be the bad cowboy – I bet you didn’t know all that stuff. You probably thought that you could ride into a town on your trotting horse, rob a bank and then ride out quickly and go hideout at someplace nice and clean and spend the loot. Not so. Normally the horses that the outlaws had were pretty skanky, no ability to feed them properly and groom them, too rushed running from the sheriff. To rob a bank you needed to have a really good plan and might very well get shot or killed. 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 deck either since where would you go that there wouldn’t be concerns 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 lifestyle you probably really wanted to live.
The Yuma prison did accomplish some good things with prisoners living there. Many of the inmates learned to read and write during their time. It actually had a small library and the inmates got medical care, limited as it was at the time. Enjoy this Arizona vacation video:
The prison was operated until 1907 (for a whole 31 years) before it was too small, overcrowded and eventually turned over for other uses. It has now continued life as a school; free housing for transients and families left homeless by the Great Depression. Although it wasn’t someplace you would long to live at, it was certainly better than having no facility to go for shelter. Some of the local Yuma people thought that it was a low cost source for building materials and thus 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 throughout the year including the Gathering of the Gunfighters in January which you should consider visiting. It will be a lot of fun. If you are there at another time of year you may desire to experience one of the Haunted Tours during October. There are also Old West re-enactments performed each Sunday from October through April.
Kings of Leon – Arizona
