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Yuma Territorial Prison State Park - Yuma, Arizona A Fascinating Arizona Vacation Location
While you were a child 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 Yuma Territorial Prison State Historical Park. 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 prison blocks!
The detention facility opened for prisoners on July 1, 1875 with seven prisoners. Those seven had been the inmates building the prison. Now, the prison was not particular about who was there, because there were also 29 women that were held at the prison. TB was a problem for the prisoners, 111 died during their incarceration at Yuma Territorial Prison. Not somewhere that was healthy to stay under any circumstance. The prison certainly was not perfect. During it's history twenty-six inmates escaped. Of the 3,000 that were incarcerated over the years that may be a pretty low occurence but absolutely not one that looked sharp on reports or with the nearby towns. If prisoners attempted to escape and did not succeed they got a 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, think about when you dreamed that you wanted to be the bad cowboy - I'm sure you did not know all that stuff. You probably thought that you could ride into a city on your prancing horse, knock over a bank and then ride out again and go hideout at someplace nice and clean and spend the loot. Not so. Usually the horses that the outlaws had were pretty skanky, no time to feed them well and groom them, too busy running from the law. To rob a bank you had to have a really good plan and might very well get shot or killed. 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 deck either because where would you go that there wouldn't be knowledge about how a dirty trail rider had the money. There may have been some that did not fit that mold, but probably not many. Not the type of lifestyle you probably really wanted to live.
The Yuma prison did accomplish some positive things with prisoners incarcerated there. Quite a few of the prisoners learned to read and write during their time. The prison actually had a small library and the prisoners got health care, limited as it was at the time. Enjoy this Arizona Tourism Video:
The territorial prison was used until 1907 (for a whole thirty-one years) before it became too small, overcrowded and eventually turned over for other uses. It has now continued life as a school; low cost lodging for hobos and families left homeless during the Great Depression. Although it wasn't a place you would long to live in, it was absolutely better than having no place to go for shelter. A few of the local Yuma residents decided that it was a low cost source for building materials and so over the years some 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 such as the Gathering of the Gunfighters in January which you should think about visiting. It could be a lot of fun. If you arrive at another time of year you may want to take one of the Haunted Tours during October. There are also Old West re-enactments done every Sunday from October through April.

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