The "REAL" Big 'Ouse....

We ended up going back into Arizona from California for a day trip.


The Yuma Territorial Prison

It was the last place you ever wanted to visit back in the day.

It was a wild time in the Arizona Territory back then...pre-statehood...and the Civil War was over but not forgotten.

A time of dry dusty ranches, sharp cactus and sharper long horns...renegades...raiders...Mexicans...and cowboys...banks and stage coaches...

And little Law to keep them all separate.

And it was an even tougher existence in the Territorial Prison. 

Six stinking criminals sharing an 8 x 12 foot cell.

All the hard cases...crooks, murderers, rapists...even a few polygamists.

It was hard labor every day

A #6 wash tub bath provided only once a week

No electricity...no AC

And no color TV!

But they did provide all the rocks you could bust with a sledge hammer...

But in spite of the prison hardships, they also offered some unique retraining programs...like the opportunity for an inmate to learn how to read and write.

The prison had assembled the best library in the territory and even loaned books to people out in the Yuma community.

Inmates were also taught construction trades...carpentry, rock masonry and black-smithing...all the skills needed for the inmates to build more cells at the prison!

In spite of the shoot-to-kill mandate for sharpshooters in the guardhouse, there were still a few successful escapes.

With the prison just a few miles from Mexico, heading south seemed to be the right place to go after an escape.

Unfortunately for the escapees, most were captured and constricted into the Mexican Army.

The feedback from those who escaped was that being in the Mexican Army at the time, was even worse than being an inmate in the Arizona Territorial Prison!

The Prison did have two extreme methods for maintaining discipline for those in prison.

The hot cell - an iron cage, out in the open in the middle of the prison yard...110 degrees and no place to find shade...and it could get into the 40's at night...with no blankets to keep warm.

And then there was the black cell

The worst of the worst misbehaving were shackled inside a 5 foot by 5 foot by 5 foot cage...bolted to the floor in a totally dark cell.

No light...no way to stand, no way to stretch and nothing to sleep on.

Guards sequenced through two solid entrance doors to access the cell, closing the outside door before opening the inside door to enter the cell.

That kept it continually dark for the inmate inside, so no clue about time of day...or to measure the passing of time.

The inmates said a day in the dark cell felt like a week in hell...

Oh, no unshackling for potty breaks either...or facilities for...well...to get rid of the "stuff".  Although the black cage was supposed to be cleaned out every 2 weeks...by the persons inside.

And even worse, there might be more than one shackled inside the cage depending on how many were breaking the prison rules at any point in time.

Duration in the cell was based on the offense and how many previous times the inmate had been assigned to the dark cell.

Seems like not much for a misbehaving inmate to look forward to!!!

The prison was operated in a manner to create a reputation of severe hardship with the objective of trying to convince the meanest hombres in the territory to stay on the right side of the law.

Wonder how behavior might improve if we returned to some of those old ways...

The guide also mentioned prison guards were paid twice  what they could earn working on the outside.

It was done so inmate bribery would never be a risk.

And I found that out first hand.

I attempted a bit of bribery for one of their most incorrigible inmates.

But it did no good...

They still let her out!!!

Let the adventure continue...