A Town At The Crossroads

  Yuma was settled partly because of its strategic location at the confluence of the Colorado and Gila Rivers. It was also located at a ford, or shallow place, of the Colorado River which made it an ideal place to cross the river on foot, on horseback, or in a wagon train. Also, at the time, the Colorado River was big enough and deep enough that  barges could navigate all the way to Yuma and beyond. They would enter the river from the Sea of Cortez and sail about 70 miles upstream to Yuma. This made Yuma a seaport in the desert.  At the time, the Colorado was, for the most part, about 1/3 to 1/2  mile wide, except for the place where it squeezed between two bluffs just below the confluence with the Gila River. Now, the Colorado is usually about 20 to 30 feet wide when it flows past Yuma, a sad testament to the manipulation of a river that serves as the lifeblood of an extremely dry area. 
  Yuma grew on the south bank of the river, the Arizona side. At the time of Yuma's founding, Arizona was a teritory and was attached to New Mexico for administrative purposes. So that means the residents of Yuma, which was initially called Colorado City, then Arizona City, had a very long way to travel to get to the territorial capital at Santa Fe. The people of Yuma identified more with California than anything else.
  Downtown Yuma today is very historic, with alot of adobe buildings and narrow streets. While that may make you think it looks like Santa Fe or Taos, it really doesn't. In the early days of the city, it was very flood prone, due to the convergence of two rivers on the eastern edge of town. What made the floods so devastating was the fact that the adobe buildings, dried mud brick buildings, would simply melt when exposed to alot of water. They were dried mud, after all. Another thing that made floods in Yuma so devastating was the tidal bore. A tidal bore occurred when the swift current of the Colorado River, which was augmented by the flow from the Gila River, clashed head on into tidewater making its way up from the Sea of Cortez. Today, the tidal bore is no longer an issue since the river's flow has been drastically diminished due to all the dams and the overallocation of its water, coupled with the fact that the Gila River is now usually dry.


 

Frontier Justice

  I have visited the Old Yuma Prison several times and it is a fascinating visit! Inside the old dining hall are alot of exhibits such as letters that were written by prsoners and guards and antique items used back in the day such as razors, knives, uniforms, etc.
There are three things at the old prison that stand out in my mind more than anything else. 
  The first thing is the guard tower, which is still in excellent condition. It overlooks the former confluence of the Colorado and Gila Rivers. Since the Gila now meets the Colorado about 10 miles outside Yuma, the old confluence is not what it used to be since only about 150 feet of the Gila's old channel still exists, but the actual meeting point is still there.
  I also vividly remember the dark cell, or solitary confinement cell. It is a room that is cut  into the side of the hill and the back part of the room is pitch dark, even in mid afternoon. It must have been a horrible way to spend a few hours, much less days or even weeks. 
  Lastly, the most vivid memory I have of the old prison are the cells themselves. The typical cell was approximately 10 feet by 6 feet and contained triple bunks on each side of the room. Six prisoners living in an area of roughly sixty square feet! I also cannot get over the narrowness of the beds. They are about half the width of a twin bed! These beds were only about two feet wide! They had iron springs with very thin mattresses on top of the springs. I know that people were generally smaller back then than they are today, but these beds seem to small even for the dimunitive human frames of the nineteenth century. I have visited many former U.S. Cavalry forts that have some original, period furnishings and, while those beds are smaller than beds of today, they are still bigger than the beds in the Old Yuma Prison. Not all of the cells in the Old Yuma Prison still have the beds in them.
   The original prison entrance, or sally port, in still standing not far from the guard tower. 
  The Old Yuma Prison closed in September, 1909 when the new prison in Florence opened. Shortly after the prison closed, it served as Yuma High School for four years, from 1910 to 1914. I will have a bit more to say about that in the next edition of this blog.
  Also, during the Great Depression, homeless people took up residence in the abandoned prison. Finally, in 1960, Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park opened to the public to preserve what remained of the symbol of frontier justice. The prison that visitors see today is only about 25% of the original complex.  This was only the fourth state park to open in Arizona. Arizona was one of the last states to establish a system of state parks. Since there is so much federal land in Arizona, it was thought that state parks were unnecessary.  The first state park in Arizona; Tombstone Courthouse, did not open until 1949. It was the only state park until Jerome State Historic Park opened in 1957 and then Tubac Presidio opened in 1958. These are all historical parks. The first recreational state park, Lyman Lake, opened in 1960, shortly after Yuma Prison opened as a tourist attraction. Lyman Lake is located midway between St. Johns and Springerville on the 
pinon-studded grasslands of eastern Arizona, near the border with New Mexico. 

"THe Hell Hole Of The West"

  In its day, the Old Yuma Prison was known as "The Hell Hole of the West" by many people. This stereotype was reinforced by Westerns after television became popular. It was also enforced by the many dime novels that came out at the time. However, people who lived in Yuma during the 33 years that it was open, had a different view of the prison that looked down menacingly over the sunbaked, adobe town below Prison Hill. The residents of Yuma actually made alot of comments and allegations that prisoners were being coddled. 
  Compared to prisons of today, the Old Yuma Prison was barbaric and cruel, but, for its time, it was actually modern and progressive. For example, one of the first electric generating plants in the West was installed at the prison. This plant ran lights and provided ventilation for the complex. The prisoners actually slept cooler at nights than the local residents because of the ventilation system. This was significant in the scorching summer months that this area has always been known for. The prison also had a library, a rarity for the day. Townspeople would pay a fee to use the library at the prison and this money was used to purchase books for the library.  
  There are some stories that, during the night, prison guards would throw snakes into cells while prisoners were sleeping or would put bugs into prison uniforms that had been freshly laundered. Some of these stories may well be true because that sort of thing did happen at prisons back in the day and, even though Yuma was a modern and progressive prison for its time, I am sure these things still happened on occasion because many of the prison guards were cruel. Also, some of these offenses may have been perpetrated by other prisoners and not necessarily guards.
  In the 33 years the Yuma Prison was open(1876-1909), it housed 3,069 prisoners. Among the people incarcerated here, 29 of them were women, including one of the most notorious female outlaws, Pearl Hart. The last prisoner left on September 15,1909 and was transferred to the then brand new Florence Prison, which today  is the largest of Arizona's state prisons.
  When the last prisoner left Old Yuma Prison, Arizona was still a territory. Statehood was not gained until February 14, 1912.