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.