Historic Sites in Yuma

Sunday, February 12, 2017

President Lincoln’s Birthday  

It has been a busy week for us here in Yuma.  On Monday, Ron and friend, Bob played golf at the Cocopah RV and Golf Resort located on the opposite side of Yuma from us while Bob's wife Trisha came to our RV to teach me how to make cinnamon rolls.  What a fun afternoon both Ron and I had.  

I have baked very little with yeast all these years making a recipe from my grandmother for Portuguese Sweet Bread twice a year at most ever since I left home just a few years ago.  Yeah, right, a few years ago.  More like 50 years ago this past August.  While my family has always eaten the bread no matter how it turned out - over cooked, under cooked and with not the greatest texture, I have always wanted to learn how better to make baked items with yeast.  One of the other things I have tried over the years has been cinnamon rolls, but they just never were any good.  So this was my opportunity to learn since Trisha makes all her own bread items every week.  She had several little hints for me which I plan to try on my own.

Needless to say, when the guys arrived at our RV later in the afternoon, we all had to sample what Trisha and I had made.  The rolls were yummy and I have told Trisha I will make another batch on my own this next week before we leave here.  Should have taken a picture, but will do it when I bake them on my own.

The remainder of the week was spent with me continuing the quilting of the bed runner for our bed, awaiting the arrival of two new lighter weight outdoor chaise lounges, trying out a local restaurant down the road, getting our fix of In N Out Burger and doing some more sightseeing. 

Yesterday Ron and I drove downtown to the Sanguinetti House, Museum and Gardens located just off the historic main street of Yuma.  

The house was the home of pioneer merchant E. F. Sanguinetti who came from California in 1883 and going to work for a local merchant (John Gandolfo) as a clerk.  He quickly rose to a full partner and later bought out Mr. Gandolfo.  E. F. established 12 stores, numerous commercial buildings, a contract firm for site development, a dairy and a wide variety of other businesses becoming the largest employer in Yuma at the time.  During the Great Depression he did suffer financial losses.  In 1915 at the age of 48 he married Lilah Balsz the daughter of a pioneer Yuma family and had three children with her.  She died in 1937 from a heart attack.  In his later years, E.F. moved back to California where he died in 1945 at age 78.

The original Sanguinetti house (right next to the street) contained the two front rooms only and was later added on to one room at a time.  Our tour of the house began with a docent who explained a bit about the family and the different businesses represented in the entry hall before we were left on our own to read information provided and take pictures.  She told us several stories and pointed out something in the room where we found an old photography copier on display.  The photographer was called a “post mortem photographer” which we had never heard before.  It seems that when people died, the family often wanted a picture taken of the loved one with other family members since unlike today family photos were not common and they wanted something to remember their loved one.  Thus, the name.  On the wall here is a picture with one such deceased person with a living person.  Can you figure out which is which?  You’ll have to read to the end for the answer.

The front entry included furnishings from an old hotel front desk, a bar room display, a lady of the evening’s room, a wall showing a faro display, a pharmacy and a general store display as well as the photography display mentioned above.  

Lady of the Evening Room

Pharmacy

General Store

Just off the entry was the front parlor with an old square grand piano.  The docent particularly pointed out these two wall hangings which tell us how the Victorians flirted with each other.  Interesting.  

Living Room in old part of home

Dining Room

Kitchen

The gardens were not of much interest as it is a bit early for much color there, but it is a lovely place for a wedding which are done here quite frequently. 

Leaving the Museum we continue down the road to the Quartermaster Depot which is also the location of the Visitor Center for Yuma.  This Quartermaster Depot was established by the Army in 1864 to store and distribute supplies to the Army forts and posts throughout Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Texas, Nevada and Utah.  With the arrival of the railroad in 1877 the need for the Depot ended.  

 Only five of the original buildings (the Store House, Quartermaster’s office, home and kitchen, the water reservoir and the Corral House) remain today and include historic displays.  The house is the oldest home in Yuma built in 1859.  Some interesting displays and a bit of history here.

The Store House

Quartermaster Office Building

Quartermaster Home built in 1859

Bedroom in Quartermaster House

More next week after we venture further afield to see what else there is to see here.

Answer – The lady on the left is the deceased family member.  It would have been too difficult to pose a deceased person standing up. 

Prison and an Engine

Sunday, February 5, 2017

A nice sunny, warm day and time to venture out for some sightseeing. 

As reported earlier, we are staying in Yuma, AZ  for a month.  Yuma experienced a surge during the 1848 the gold rush when immigrants came through Yuma being ferried across the Colorado River on their way to the California gold fields.  In 1850 a military post was established and in 1858 when gold strikes were found in the area, Yuma became a real boom town.  1871 saw Yuma become the county seat of Yuma County.   The most well known movie made in Yuma is “The 3:10 to Yuma” starring Glen Ford. 

 A drive around in the old town area we find a number of old buildings below.

In Pivot Point Park we find the Southern Pacific #2521 engine and its tender.    The engine was built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone (Philadelphia) PA in August 1907 and placed in service by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1908.  This engine traveled over 2.5 million miles and was in service until 1957 when it was donated to the City of Yuma.

The train spent most of its working life in Northern California and Oregon and its last few years in Yuma.  While I’m not a great train fan, I do love these old engines and love to hear their history.  I had a great, great uncle who was an engineer for the Southern Pacific Railroad in California and found his memoirs about his life and travels with the railroad very interesting.   Could my uncle have been the engineer on this engine?  Wouldn’t that be interesting if he was?   I will have to search my records to find out the ones he worked on.

Located along the Colorado River, we find the Old Yuma Territorial Prison which opened its doors in 1875 with the first seven prisoners entering in 1876 when they completed the construction of their own cells.  3,069 prisoners including 29 women lived within the walls in its 33 year history.

Looking at the Sally Port (entrance to prison)

Looking through the Sally Port at entrance to Museum

Entrance to the Museum

The prison held a variety of lawless individuals including the famous Pearl Hart, a legendary stagecoach robber.

Women's Cell

Due to overcrowding and no place to built, the prison was closed in 1909 when the new prison was built in Florence, AZ.

Included in the walls of the prison building here is the Dark Cell where prisoners were placed within a dark room (now with two bats in residence) in an iron cell 15 by 15, stripped to their underwear, with no toilet facilities and fed only bread and water.  How awful.    Many went crazy with the darkness.  

This is what the iron cell looked like inside the cell.

Some of the other cells (all built into the rock here) contained 6 prisoners sleeping on two three tier bunk beds.  According to the video we watch this prison was one of the better kept prisons with showers, clean clothes, flushing toilets and sanitary conditions.  It is hard for me to even imagine being incarcerated in one of these places, even in today’s prisons.  I don’t feel sorry for those who are there, but can’t imagine spending the remainder of my life in such a place.  Guess those who are in these places didn’t think about what the consequences of their actions could bring.

Entrance to a cell block

Outside wall of cell block

Cell

Exercise Yard

In 1910 the Yuma Union High School occupied these buildings while they waited for their school to be completed.  When another school called the students “Criminals.” they decided to adopt that name for their sporting teams which is still the team name to this day.  Cute.

Sweeping past the Prison and crossing the Colorado River on the large brown railroad bridge, current railroad trains 

chug into Winterhaven, CA passed the St. Thomas Mission built on the hill in 1922 to serve the Quechan Indian Nation.

 The original church (La Purisima Concepcion Mission) was built in 1780 on the same spot but was destroyed in 1781 by Quechan Indians who resented the intrusion into their territory.  There was no Presidio protecting the mission making for easier access by the Indians.   The site is #350 on the book of California Registered Historic Landmarks.  Today a plaque commemorates the site and Father Garces who started the first mission.

Located next to the brown railroad bridge is the old gray bridge which was finished in 1915 and named the “Ocean to Ocean” Highway Bridge as it was the last link between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  Today it is a one way bridge with a stop signal on each side allowing traffic to pass over it going only in one direction at a time. 

We return to the RV full of history of the area with more sites to take in another day.

Catching up with Friends in Yuma

January 22 – 31, 2017

We are settled in at our resort here in Yuma.  There are quite a few activities going on but weather has been terrible – windy and cold so no one is outside much.  This next week is supposed to be warmer with less wind so hopefully we will get out and about more. Ron is looking forward to going golfing.   There is a group of ladies quilting here on Thursdays so I will be joining them to start quilting the bed runner for our bed.

We are making connections with some of our RVillage friends who are here in Yuma right now.  Had dinner Saturday night with friends Trish and Bob at a very nice local restaurant called River City Grill located in the old downtown area.  The restaurant did not look like much from the outside, but was very nicely decorated inside and food was excellent. 

  I have been trying to learn to eat Salmon so ordered a grilled salmon with an apricot sauce which was an excellent choice.  Fish was cooked just right and apricot sauce on top an added flavor.  Ron opted for the blackened chicken served over fettuccini alfredo and grilled veggies.  We highly recommend both our food choices and the restaurant.  Excellent service.  We also enjoyed catching up with our friends and look forward to seeing them again while we are both here.

If you have ever been in Yuma and not been to the Arizona marketplace, you have missed an amusing afternoon of shopping.  This is an outdoor market place in tents which goes on forever and includes everything from clothing to knickknacks to RV supplies to furniture and fruits and veggies, to name just a few things.  They also have food vendors and live music. 

Sunday afternoon we caught up with friends Marie and Jack at the local Olive Garden.  They were on their way to San Diego for four days.  Marie and I compared notes on our recent mishaps.  Me with my fall in October and she with her broken wrist after falling from her bicycle.  What a pair we are.  Hopefully, we can stay accident free going forward.  Hopefully, we will catch up with them again when we return to Casa Grande next month.

Tuesday afternoon we visited with friends Tricia and G at their resort down the road from us.  They were with us at the FMCA Rally in Indio and it was nice to spend time with them again.   G (not his name, but easier to say as he is from Iceland so his name is a challenge for us Americans).    He and Tricia are a lot of fun and we always enjoy being with them.  Since G enjoys karaoke at their resort, we spent the late afternoon listening to G and others perform.    Some good singers and some not so good performed.  One gentleman at our table did a great imitation of Louis Armstrong singing “What a Wonderful World.”  As for G, he did a great job singing a cappella in his native language singing both the male (low) and female (high) parts of a Conway Twitty song.  He had the crowd laughing and clapping as he performed.  Later he sang

Love Me Tender and did a great job.  Nice going, G.   Later we introduced them to Famous Dave’s BBQ restaurant. 

Weather has finally warmed up so we can now enjoy some time outdoors.  Stay tuned for some sightseeing trips around Yuma.

Sightseeing in Southern California

Week of January 15, 2017

We enjoyed the Rally and have been staying at the Elks Lodge here in Indio for this past week taking in a few of the local sights.    We spent an afternoon driving around Palm Springs which I had not been to since the mid 1960’s.  I don’t remember much about my visit then so don’t know what changed, but I know it is quite different and built up from the 60’s.   Lots of palm trees, beautiful homes, shops and traffic.

 Notice the snow on the mountains to the west of Palm Springs as a result of the rain storm in the area last Friday.

We had hoped to take in the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum and the Palm Springs Historical Society  Museums, but they were closed for the day.  However, we did learn a bit about the two homes found on the”Village Green” along the main street of Palm Springs.

The McCallum Adobe is the oldest remaining building in Palm Springs built in 1884 for John McCallum, the first white settler in Palm Springs.  It has been relocated from somewhere else to here and has exhibits of photos, paintings, clothing, tools, books and Indian ware from the early days of Palm Springs.

The second home is Miss Cornelia White’s “Little House” built from railroad ties taken from an abandoned Palmdale railroad in 1893 by the city’s first hotel proprietor, Dr. Welwood Murray.  The Village Green area also contains a lovely fountain and numerous stars in the sidewalks honoring local pioneers and movie stars. 

We walked along the street for a short distance and took in some of the shops before going in search of a local restaurant to fill our tummies.  Elmer’s is located along the main street and has been on this site since 1960.  Service is the name of the game here as well as Elmer’s famous buttermilk and German pancakes.  While we enjoy breakfast at any time of the day, we opted for sandwiches which were delicious. 

Taking the I-10 back to Indio we observe this area near the freeway heavily filled with wind turbines.  What a sight.

On Wednesday of this week, we take a drive west to Joshua Tree National Park which was declared a U.S. Park in 1994.  It had been a National Monument since 1936 and is so named for the Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) forests that are native to the park.   The park covers 789,000 + acres with a large part designated as wilderness area.  The park includes two deserts – the higher Mojave Desert and the lower Colorado Desert with the San Bernardino Mountains running through the southwest edge of the park and numerous campgrounds geared for the small RV’s or tenters and many hiking trails.    

After a stop at the Visitor Center at the south end, we proceed to drive north for 47 miles through many different areas of flora and rock formations in the park.  While plants from one area could be found in others, some of the areas were uniquely one type of plant.

Ocotillo

Cholla

Notice Yellow bud where flower was in sprng

Joshua Tree

Rock formations were interesting and unique.  We stopped at a rock area for our lunch before proceeding on and returning to the Elks Lodge. 

Skull Rock

Split Rock

Ceil and I found time one afternoon to take in all the local thrift stores, Dollar Tree and Hobby Lobby while Ron remained at home content to enjoy his computer and photoshop some of his pictures.  We found a few “treasures” along the way.

Sunday finds us on our way west to Yuma and Ceil heading back to ABQ.  It was fun to attend the Rally and to have Ceil with us.   We always have fun together and look forward to seeing her in ABQ when we are there in April.  Safe travels home, Ceil.

FMCA Rally

Saturday, January 21, 2017

It has been a couple of busy weeks for us since leaving Casa Grande. 

We arrived in Indio for the FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) Western Area Rally on Monday, January 9 with the Rally beginning on Thursday the 13 so we had time to poke around in Indio and to visit with neighbors and friends. Friends we made at Enchanted Trails in ABQ two years ago (Tricia and G) came into the Rally with us so they could be parked together with us and our friend Ceil who drove from ABQ to be with us at this Rally and afterwards.  It was fun to catch up on Tricia and G’s travels since we had last seen each other. 

There were over 800 Class A Motorhomes at his Rally spread out over the grassy (more dirt than grass) and concrete areas of the Riverside County Fairgrounds.  Of course, us peons (not VIP’s with FMCA or vendors or disabled) got to stay in the dirt area.  Everything was lovely until Thursday night when it began to have rain and rain and rain until Friday evening late.  The long and short is that the dirt became mushy and full of puddles and lakes and  some of the concrete areas were lakes and rivers.  It was fun stepping over and around all the puddles as we went from place to place.  Friday afternoon one had to be taken into several of the buildings because there was a lake several inches deep just outside the buildings.  What a mess.  Everyone made the best of it and enjoyed the seminars, vendor booths and evening entertainment which consisted of a group playing mostly George Strait music and country western and another the next evening being a group impersonating the Beach Boys.  Both groups were great.  On Friday night pumpers pumped out 7000,000 gallons (that is the right number) from the concrete areas.

Week Two tomorrow.

An End and A Beginning

December 31, 2016

Well, 2016 is almost over, thank goodness.   Hope you all had a wonderful year and holidays and that the new year brings you happiness, health and wealth.

2016 was a tough year for me with breast surgery, chemo and radiation the first of the year and a bad fall in October with a couple of broken nose bones prompting nasal surgery, a deep cut in the bridge of my nose needing stitches, black eyes and a nondisplaced fracture of the C1 needing a 24/7 cervical collar for seven weeks.  Whew!  I‘m glad that is all behind me.    Through all of this Ron has been by my side driving me to doctor appointments, making meals, and being sympathetic to my tears and pain at again being incapacitated.  What a wonderful guy I married.

Our Christmas was quiet but we were not alone.  Our Resort had a Chili dinner on Christmas Eve and a Potluck Dinner on Christmas Day where we made some new acquaintances.  Lots of good food and company with others without their families.

As the New Year approaches, our time here is nearing an end.  We have thoroughly enjoyed our activities with me busy finishing Christmas quilting projects at Mrs. Claus’s (Kathy’s) Quilting Workshop (the quilt room here and in our RV) and Ron golfing and being part of the photography club.  We have not done much sightseeing but rather have enjoyed just being in one place for a while, meeting new people, trying some local restaurants and enjoying the Elks Lodge Wednesday night hamburgers.   Our plan is to return here for three months next year (Jan. - Mar.) and getting more involved in other activities available at this Resort.

We leave here on January 9 headed for the FMCA Western Area Rally in Indio, CA where we will enjoy seeing what the vendors have for sale, attending seminars and nightly entertainment and taking in the local area.  Our friend Ceil will be arriving in her RV on January 8 and will travel with us to the Rally and another week afterwards in the Southern California area.  We have missed our travels together and look forward to spending time with her.  We also hope to catch up with a couple of vendor friends who will be at the Rally. 

Signing Off until the New Year in California.