Yuma Territorial Prison State Park

The Yuma Territorial Prison State Park is slated to close at the end of March 2010. There are various groups that are working to try to keep the prison park open. If you'd like to donate to the cause, you can find more information here:

Chain Gang Prison Fund.

Sonoran Desert Vista from the Yuma Territorial Prison Hill.

The prison cemetery is in the background down the trail.

The prison cemetery.

The main guard tower and the mission across the river where Fort Yuma once stood.

The stunning view from the Main Guard Tower, across the Colorado River, into California.

The main entrance to the prison yard.

Pearl Hart's Six-Shot Colt .45 revolver.

A view down the corridor of prison cells.

Inside one of the multiple-occupancy cells.

The "Dark Cell" (insert involuntary shudder here).

The Yuma Territorial Prison State Park is slated to close at the end of March 2010. There are various groups that are working to try to keep the prison park open. If you'd like to donate to the cause, you can find more information here:

Chain Gang Prison Fund.

The doorway to the prison library, which was the first in Arizona.

The "new prison yard" which is, in my very humble opinion, not nearly as interesting as the older stuff...

Some tools used by the prisoners.

Fort Yuma played a historic if obscure role in the American Civil War. The saddle shown here and displayed in the Yuma Territorial Prison museum belonged to Lieutenant F. Green, M.D. who served with the Union Medical Corps at Fort Yuma during the war.

Fort Yuma and the Civil War

A "dump wagon" used around 1900.

A cat on the prison grounds who was staring so intensely at this bird that he never noticed me.

The object of the cat's affection.

Prison Cat inside the main prison yard.

The view looking across the Colorado River to the California side,
where Fort Yuma originally stood.

The Yuma Territorial Prison State Park is slated to close at the end of March 2010. There are various groups that are working to try to keep the prison park open. If you'd like to donate to the cause, you can find more information here:

Chain Gang Prison Fund.