Yuma Territorial Prison

Coordinates: 32°43′35.5″N 114°36′51.9″W / 32.726528°N 114.614417°W / 32.726528; -114.614417

The Yuma Territorial Prison is a former prison located in Yuma, Arizona, United States. Opened in 1875, 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.^[1][2]

History

Prison

Opened while Arizona was still a U.S. territory, the prison accepted its first inmate on July 1, 1876.^[3] For the next 33 years 3,069 prisoners, including 20 women, served sentences there for crimes ranging from murder to polygamy.^[4] The prison was under continuous construction with labor provided by the prisoners.^[5] In 1909, the last prisoner left the Territorial Prison for the newly constructed Arizona State Prison Complex located in Florence, Arizona.^[6] It was also the 3rd historic park in Arizona.

High School

Yuma Union High School occupied the buildings from 1910 to 1914.^[7] When the school's football team played against Phoenix and unexpectedly won, the Phoenix team called the Yuma team "criminals".^[8] 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.^[9]

Notable inmates

• Burt Alvord, Cochise County lawman and train robber
• William Jordan Flake, Mormon pioneer imprisoned for violating the Edmunds Act
• Pearl Hart, stagecoach robber
• Franklin 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

In popular culture

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

• "Three-Ten to Yuma",^[10] a 1953 western short story written by Elmore Leonard, and also in two film adaptations:
• 3:10 to Yuma, the 1957 original^[11] (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.^[12]
• 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.^[13]
• In the 1959 western, Rawhide (S1E2 broadcast 1 Jan 59), starring Clint Eastwood. In the episode "Incident at Alabaster Plain" Rowdy Yates tells how he and a fellow Confederate Corporal (Buzz Travis) escaped the Yuma Territorial Prison during the Civil War.^[14]
• The Main Gate of Yuma Prison is shown at the beginning of the Wanted: Dead or Alive episode, "Reunion For A Revenge."
• Mentioned in the 1961 Western novel, "Hombre," by Elmore Leonard, which was adapted into a screenplay for 1967 movie of the same name starring Paul Newman, Fredric March, Richard Boone, Martin Balsam, and Diane Cilento.
• In the 1961 western, The Comancheros, starring John Wayne, Yuma is also referenced.^[15]
• For a Few Extra Dollars (aka Fort Yuma's Gold) is a 1966 Italian spaghetti western war film.
• The first scene of the "Louis L'Amour" book Kid Rodelo (first published in 1966) takes place in Yuma Prison
• In Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), the bandit Cheyenne is put on a train to Yuma (from which he escapes).
• Yuma prison is referenced frequently in western radio and television programs such as Gunsmoke, The Rifleman and Bonanza, where ex-cons were frequently described as having done time.^[16]
• The 1968 Italian made film "Long Ride From Hell" is a tale of revenge that chronicles the saga of a rancher who along with his brother is unjustly sent to Yuma prison.
• In The Wild Bunch (1969), Pat Harrigan (Albert Dekker) threatens Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan): "You've got thirty days to get Pike, or thirty days back to Yuma."
• In They Call Me Trinity (1970), Bambino (Bud Spencer) tells Trinity (Terence Hill) that he escaped from Yuma Prison.
• The novel Forty Lashes Less One (1972) by Elmore Leonard takes place almost entirely inside Yuma Prison in 1909, shortly before it was closed down.

Gallery

• 
  The main guard tower.
• 
  Cells and the yard.
• 
  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.

See also

• Thomas H. Rynning
• Ben Daniels (pioneer)
• Clifton Cliff Jail
• Gleeson Jail

References

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