A Very Brief History Of The Yuma Territorial Prison

The Yuma Territorial Prison was built for one reason, to keep prisoners in; however, the facility was used for many more causes. It was built as a maximum-security prison for inmates who would try to escape and/or could not be in any other prison. Even though the prison had a fearsome reputation, it was actually a model institution for its time. It was authorized by legislature to be built in 1875 and the prison itself operated for 30 years. It held a total of 3,609 prisoners and 29 of them were women. Only 26 of the prisoners escaped and from those 26 prisoners, 24 were already outside of the facility. Even after the prison closed, the community continued to use it. The Yuma Territorial Prison was fascinating because of the how it was opened and closed, the different punishments they were given for not following the rules

One of them was that Yuma was one of the most isolated cities in Arizona with a population of 1,144 people and another reason was that Yuma had and still has a very dry and hot climate. Average temperatures in the summer were 110°. The first seven convicts arrived on July 1st, 1876 and were placed in their quarters, which they had helped build. Since the prison had not yet been completed yet, their job of constructing it continued. The prison was placed on 7 acres of land on a bluff above the Colorado River donated by the village of Yuma. The Yuma Territorial Prison had a kitchen, photo gallery, bakery, bathing room, cells, library, guard tower, main gate and even a cemetery. By 1907, the prison became overcrowded and there was not any more room on the prison hill for expansion. On September 15 1909, the last prisoner from the Yuma Territorial Prison left to Florence. Since the prison was empty, it was destroyed by the weather, fires and railroad construction. The only remains left from the prison were the main gate, guard tower, dark cell, main gate, cemetery and