Yuma Territorial Prison State Park - Southwestern, Arizona A Fascinating Arizona Vacation Location

Arizona Tourism Video

When you were young growing up did you want to play cowboys?  Maybe you wanted to be the bad guy instead of the hero wearing the white hat.  One of the places you certainly dreamed a little about was the Southwestern Arizona Yuma Prison.  Where the "really bad guys" were sent to serve out their time in prison. Not only were they prisoners but they were also forced to construct their own prison blocks!

The detention facility opened to business on July 1, 1875 with seven prisoners.  Those 7 had been the ones building the prison.  Now, the prison wasn't picky about who was there, because there were also 29 female prisoners that were detained at the prison.  TB was a problem for the prisoners, one-hundred-eleven died throughout their time in Yuma Territorial Prison.  Not somewhere that was healthy to stay under any circumstance.  The prison certainly wasn't perfect.  During its history twenty-six prisoners escaped.  Of the three-thousand that were imprisoned over the years that is a very low number but absolutely not one that looked sharp on reports or to the neighboring cities.  If they attempted to escape and did not succeed they got a painful 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 vacations offerings, think about when you dreamed 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, knock over 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 time to feed them properly and groom them, too rushed staying ahead of the law.  To rob a bank you had to have a really good plan and might very well get shot or caught.  If you were caught you were shipped to Yuma (or worse.)  Living it up with the money, if you got away, probably wasn't in the cards either because where would you go that there wouldn't be concerns about how a dirty trail rider had the money.  There are some that did not fit that sterotype, but probably not many.  Probably not the type of life you probably really wanted to live.

The prison did accomplish some positive things with prisoners incarcerated there.  Many of the prisoners learned to read and write during their imprisonment.  It actually had a small library and the prisoners received medical care, limited as it was at the time.  Enjoy this Arizona Tourism Video:

The territorial prison was operated until 1907 (for a whole 31 years) before it became too small, overcrowded and eventually turned over for other uses.  It has a continued life as a school; low cost housing for hobos and families left homeless during the Great Depression. Although it wasn't someplace you would long to live at, it was absolutely better than having no place to use for shelter.  A few of the local Yuma residents decided that it was a low cost source for building supplies and so over the years many of the buildings were totally 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 think about visiting.  It could 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.