Yuma Territorial Prison

The Yuma Territorial Prison
Main Gate to the Yuma Territorial Prison.
General information
Location	Yuma, Arizona, United States
Coordinates	32°43′37″N 114°36′54″W / 32.72694°N 114.61500°W / 32.72694; -114.61500
Opened	1876[1]
Website
www.yumaprison.org

The Yuma Territorial Prison is a former prison located in Yuma, Arizona, United States. Opened on July 1, 1876, and shut down on September 15, 1909. It is one of the Yuma Crossing and Associated Sites on the National Register of Historic Places in the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area. The site is now operated as a historical museum by Arizona State Parks as Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park.^[2][3]

History

Prison

Opened while Arizona was still a U.S. territory, the prison accepted its first inmate on July 1, 1876.^[4] For the next 33 years 3,069 prisoners, including 29 women, served sentences there for crimes ranging from murder to polygamy.^[5] The prison was under continuous construction with labor provided by the prisoners.^[6] In 1909, the last prisoner left the Territorial Prison for the newly constructed Arizona State Prison Complex located in Florence, Arizona.^[7] It was also the third historic park in Arizona. The state historic park also contains a graveyard where 104 of the prisoners are buried.^[8]

High school

Yuma Union High School occupied the buildings from 1910 to 1914.^[9] When the school's football team played against Phoenix and unexpectedly won, the Phoenix team called the Yuma team "criminals".^[10] Yuma High adopted the nickname with pride, sometimes shortened to the "Crims". The school's symbol is the face of a hardened criminal, and the student merchandise shop is called the Cell Block.^[11]

Notable inmates

• Burt Alvord – Cochise County lawman and train robber
• Bill Downing – Train robber
• William J. Flake – Mormon pioneer imprisoned for violating the Edmunds Act^[12]
• Pearl Hart – stagecoach robber
• "Buckskin Frank" Leslie – gunfighter and killer of Billy Claiborne
• Ricardo Flores Magón – Mexican revolutionary, founder of the Partido Liberal Mexicano
• Pete Spence – outlaw involved in the Earp-Clanton feud^[13]

In popular culture

(Listed chronologically) The Yuma Territorial Prison has been featured in:

• "Forty Lashes Less One", a 1972 western novel by Elmore Leonard about a planned prison break in 1909, the year the prison was closed.
• "Three-Ten to Yuma",^[14] a 1953 western short story written by Elmore Leonard, and also in two film adaptations:
• 3:10 to Yuma, the 1957 original^[15] (directed by Delmer Daves and starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin), and the 2007 remake, also titled 3:10 to Yuma, directed by James Mangold and starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.^[16]
• 26 Men, the 1957 episode "Incident at Yuma" of the syndicated western series of true stories of the Arizona Rangers, focuses on a prison break and the difficulty of gathering a posse faced by Captain Thomas H. Rynning, portrayed by Tristram Coffin.^[17]
• "Hell Hole Prison" season 12, episode 8 of the Travel Channel show Ghost Adventures was shot at the prison. focusing its allegedly history of hauntings.^[18]
• The prison was one of the two featured stories on the 71st episode of the podcast And That's Why We Drink.^[19]
• Named one of the top haunted destinations in America by USA Today in October 2020.^[20]

Gallery

• 
  The main guard tower.
• 
  Cells and the yard.
• 
  Prison cells with courtyard.
• 
  Iron bunkbeds inside the prison.
• 
  A mugshot of Pete Spence at the Yuma Territorial Prison in 1883.
• 
  Pearl Hart at the prison in 1899.
• 
  Burt Alvord at the prison in 1904.
• 
  Bill Donning imprisoned in 1901.
• 
  Prison Cemetery.
• 
  Graves of prisoners.

See also

• Thomas H. Rynning – former warden of the prison
• Ben Daniels – former superintendent of the prison
• Clifton Cliff Jail – historic site in the Clifton Townsite Historic District of Clifton, Arizona
• Gleeson Jail – in Gleeson, Arizona
• Jose Maria Redondo – the "Father of the Yuma Territorial Prison"
• List of historic properties in Yuma, Arizona
• Johnny Behan Past warden

References

Further reading

• Joseph Stocker (May 1961). "City of Lost Hope". Arizona Highways. XXXVII (5): 36–39 – via Arizona Memory Project.

External links

• Yuma Territorial Prison Museum and Park – Historic Yuma AZ
• Arizona State Parks: Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park website
• AZ Department of Corrections: Early History, with Yuma Territorial Prison – Arizona Department of Corrections
• U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Yuma Territorial Prison
• Yuma Territorial Prison – ghosttowns.com

This page was last edited on 15 February 2024, at 07:43