Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Touring the Yuma Territorial Prison State Park

Martha and I spent most of the morning touring the museum and former Yuma Territorial Prison.  Unlike some of the other prisons we've toured, this one had been restored to pretty good shape; though not as complete as when it was an operational prison.

Archival photo of the prison, located near the crossing
across the Colorado River into Yuma



The emplacement of this gatling type gun seemed a bit excessive to me but then again, it was different times.  I bet the sight of it quelled some inclinations to riot by the prisoners?

After the museum displays we wandered about the remaining/restored structures that included the main cell blocks:


Six to a cell, cozy....

main cell block

the walls were constructed using prison
labor.

the infirmary

Female prison cell example


A pretty good museum and display.  It's worth allocating a couple of hours to it if you're in the Yuma, AZ area.

Afterwards, we had lunch at "El Charro" Mexican Restaurant, pretty good food.  Glad we got there as they opened, the place was quite busy during the ensuing lunch hour!

Some chores later, we returned to the campsite to rest away the rest of the afternoon.

Nature favored us with another nice sunset:



Enjoying a cocktail with the sunset on
a warm evening....not too shabby.

6 comments:

CCjon said...

Sounds like my kind of relaxing day. Enjoy...

redlegsrides said...

Thanks CCjon, we shall.

RichardM said...

We enjoyed wandering around the territorial prison. They. do have it nicely fixed up. Overall, we didn't enjoy the Yuma area. It felt crowded.

redlegsrides said...

RichardM, I think Yuma is just a big city wannabe, and it'll probably just get worse as more snowbirds arrive.

Spat said...

That prison museum has come along way since we we're there. Be tough prison time in the heat of the desert. Back in my Harley days we'd go to the Yuma prison run put on by Norwalks MC I think the rally's last year was 2019, we were going in the 80s. One year I got a special award for helping out a couple of their club members who crashed up in the Denver area. Thanks for the memories Dom

redlegsrides said...

You're welcome, John, and thanks for the comments.