Yuma Territorial Prison

Prison

Opened while Arizona was still a U.S. territory, the prison accepted its first inmate on July 1, 1876.^[4] For the next 33 years 3,069 prisoners, including 29 women, served sentences there for crimes ranging from murder to polygamy.^[5] The prison was under continuous construction with labor provided by the prisoners.^[6] In 1909, the last prisoner left the Territorial Prison for the newly constructed Arizona State Prison Complex located in Florence, Arizona.^[7] It was also the third historic park in Arizona. The state historic park also contains a graveyard where 104 of the prisoners are buried.^[8]

High school

Yuma Union High School occupied the buildings from 1910 to 1914.^[9] When the school's football team played against Phoenix and unexpectedly won, the Phoenix team called the Yuma team "criminals".^[10] 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.^[11]

Notable inmates

• Burt Alvord – Cochise County lawman and train robber
• Bill Downing – Train robber
• William J. Flake – Mormon pioneer imprisoned for violating the Edmunds Act^[12]
• Pearl Hart – stagecoach robber
• "Buckskin Frank" 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^[13]

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

• "Forty Lashes Less One", a 1972 western novel by Elmore Leonard about a planned prison break in 1909, the year the prison was closed.
• "Three-Ten to Yuma",^[14] a 1953 western short story written by Elmore Leonard, and also in two film adaptations:
• 3:10 to Yuma, the 1957 original^[15] (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.^[16]
• 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.^[17]
• "Hell Hole Prison" season 12, episode 8 of the Travel Channel show Ghost Adventures was shot at the prison. focusing its allegedly history of hauntings.^[18]
• The prison was one of the two featured stories on the 71st episode of the podcast And That's Why We Drink.^[19]
• Named one of the top haunted destinations in America by USA Today in October 2020.^[20]

• 
  The main guard tower.
• 
  Cells and the yard.
• 
  Prison cells with courtyard.
• 
  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.
• 
  Bill Donning imprisoned in 1901.
• 
  Prison Cemetery.
• 
  Graves of prisoners.

• Thomas H. Rynning – former warden of the prison
• Ben Daniels – former superintendent of the prison
• Clifton Cliff Jail – historic site in the Clifton Townsite Historic District of Clifton, Arizona
• Gleeson Jail – in Gleeson, Arizona
• Jose Maria Redondo – the "Father of the Yuma Territorial Prison"
• List of historic properties in Yuma, Arizona
• Johnny Behan Past warden

• Joseph Stocker (May 1961). "City of Lost Hope". Arizona Highways. XXXVII (5): 36–39 – via Arizona Memory Project.

• 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
• U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Yuma Territorial Prison
• Yuma Territorial Prison – ghosttowns.com