YUMA TERRITORIAL PRISON ~ March 17, 2007

The Territorial Prison at Yuma is located at 1 Prison Hill Road, just around the bend from Yuma Crossing State Historic Park. Built in 1876, over 3,000 prisoners including 39 women lived within these walls during the prison's thirty-three years of operation. Their crimes ranged from polygamy to murder, with grand larceny being the most common.

This prison was featured in many western movies and despite an infamous reputation, no executions took place there and it was actually a model institution for its time -- complete with a library and schooling for inmates, church services, electric lights and ventilation system, and regular medical checkups. The worst punishment was the dark cave-like cell for inmates who broke prison regulations.

The three-foot-thick rock walls of the main cell block are lined with iron gratings. Twelve cells were dug into the hillside in 1900 to relieve overcrowding. However, by 1907 there was no room on Prison Hill for expansion. As many as 10 inmates had to be packed into a cell measuring 8 x 10 feet. A new facility was constructed in Florence, Arizona and the last prisoner left Yuma on September 15, 1909.

The Yuma Union High School occupied the prison buildings from 1910 to 1914. In the 1920’s, the prison was used as free lodging by hobos riding the freight trains which ran right alongside one of the prison walls. The empty cells also sheltered many Depression-era homeless families. Even the main guard tower served various functions, including a Civil Defense lookout during World War II.

Today, all that’s left standing are the cells, main gate (adobe walls and iron bars), and restored guard tower (a wooden structure built over top of the water tank to limit evaporation). Museum exhibits document the story of the prison with artifacts and interpretations of prison life, photos and bios of former convicts, and more. The guard tower has a commanding view of the surrounding area.

Adjacent to the parking lot is a nature trail that leads down to the Prison Cemetery which is located just outside the park near the Colorado River. One hundred and eleven prisoners died while serving their sentences, mostly from tuberculosis which was common throughout the territory and spread easily in close quarters. Only nine were killed while trying to escape. The graves are not much more than piles of stones, the wooden markers having been either stolen or deteriorated.