Wiccan Road To Ghosts -

Yuma County Ghost Towns

Aztec- A station of the Southern Pacific Railroad between Phoenix and Yuma. Take exit 73 off I-8. Located eighty miles east of Yuma. Charles A. Dallen established the Post Office on September 12, 1889.

There are two buildings still standing with some foundations and scrap. One building is completely made of railroad ties.

Bradshaw's Ferry -See Olivia

Castle Dome/ Landing -Castle Dome is a small mining settlement which produced silver and lead. Castle Dome established a post office on December 17, 1875 and discontinued it on June 16, 1884. Castle Dome Landing was the supply and shipping depot for mines in the nearby Castle Dome Mountains and the first stop for steamboats on their way up the Colorado river. A small but active town, Castle Dome Landing had a store, hotel, saloon, stage agency, smelting furnace, and a Justice of the Peace. As the mines played out a need for a supply town disappeared. Today the site is under water after the building of the Imperial Dam.

Castle Dome Mine- Castle Dome, fifty miles above Yuma City, so called from its being located upon this isolated mountain resembling a dome, was laid out about this time. The lodes were in the mountains fifteen to thirty miles back from the river, but were not easy of access, and water was very scarce. The ores were argentiferous galena in a vein stone of fluor spar, and contained from thirty to forty ounces to the ton. For years afterwards they were extensively worked and some of them proved quite profitable.

Take Hwy. 95 North from Yuma, 40 miles. You will pass te Uyma proving ground. Turn off at Castle Dome Road mile Marker 55 and continue East. You will pass Castle Dome Museum and rock Sop. Follow the road until you come to the mine. Phone 928-920 3062

Clip- In the early part of the a880's, the Silver Clip claim was located and a ten-stamp mill built to work the ore. It was on th ecolorado Rivr about eight miles Northwest of the mile. The town included two hundred residents, a post office and a general store which all grew up around the milling complex.

Hubbard and Bowers ran the Silver Clip mine until April, 1887 and then the mill ran on the mine tailings but gradually stopped. The post office closed and the town ceased to exist.

Dome - Gila City - Found along the Welton-Mohawk canal. The Post Office opened first with the name Gila City in 1858. The new Post Office came in 1892 as Dome and closed in 1940 after a continual open and closed program for many years. One large adobe building remains with some small adobe remnants and foundations.

Eagle Landing- Served as a shipping piint for the ore from the Planet Mine. Located on the Colorado River, fifteen miles West of Planet.

Ehrenberg- Ehrenberg was laid out by surveyor Herman Ehrenberg and first called Mineral City. It consisted of a few tents, crude huts and sixteen men. Ehrenberg was murdered at Dos Palmas, Ca and never knew this town was named after him. By 1870 an exodus from La Paz grew the town to eighty-seven dwellings and ninety-six family. J. goldwater & Bros., J.M Barney, and J.M. Castenado all established businesses here. By 1875, the population grew to five hundred with stores, saloons, corrals, blacksmith, wagon shop, two bakeries, a hotel, a Catholic Church and the Arizona Stage Company.

The cemetery monument was erected in 1935 by the Arizona State Highway Department and relics of the past were cemented into an apron surrounding the base of the rock and mortar obelish.

Fortuna - Nothings remain of this town that was in the Gila mountains. The Post Office opened in 1896 and closed in 1904. It was close to the "Camino del Diablo", " the road of death" with its crudely-marked stone graves markers leading the way. Fortuna was the lighthouse in the dark desert for the thirsty miners crossing the desert without water. Water was scarce in the area but when they discovered the La Fortuna mine, they set up a pump at the Colorado River and pumped twenty miles to the town site. The mine was located in 1894 by Charles W. Thomas, Laurent Albert and William H. Holbert. It was then sold to Charles D. Lane of Angels Camp, California in 1896. and then mined on and off until 1904. Besides a twenty-stamp mill and eighty to one hundred men, the town had saloons, a hotel, a stage and a freight line.

Take I-8 East from Yuma to the Fortuna exit. Turn left on the frontge road which will parallel I-8. approximately one mile east of Foothills Boulevard the road crosses a wash and becomes a dirt. continue several miles and th road wll fork but you make take either one for the two will join again after a few miles. Fortuna lies in the Gila about ten miles South of the access road. There is a water reservoir, old house foundatios and some stone walls where the town once stood.

Gila City -Arizona's First Gold Rush Francis X. Aubry reported seeing evidence of gold floating on the Colorado River in 1853 but said it was of little value, and nothing was done to develop it. Five years later in 1858, Arizona's first major gold rush occurred when Colonel Jacob Snively led a party of prospectors to a placer deposit on the Gila River about 19 miles east of its juncture with the Colorado River. A booming camp, Gila City soon developed, filled with tents, shanties and adobe houses. By 1861, there were 1,000 miners in the camp.

Gila City, a placer boom town that lived only 4 years, was near the mouth of Monitor Gulch adjacent to the Southern Pacific Lieutenant Sylvester Mowry, a noted Arizona miner and pioneer, visited the placers in November 1858 and reported that men were recovering $30 to $215 per day; he witnessed $20 in gold washed from eight shovelfuls of dirt by an unexperienced placer miner.

Enterprising men hurried to the spot with barrels of whiskey and billiard tables; Jewish merchants came with ready-made clothing and fancy wares; traders crowded in with wagons-loads of pork and beans; and gamblers came with cards and monte-tables. There was everything in Gila City within a few months but a church and a jail. men were mining from $30 to $125 worth of gold a day. Other miners were paid $3.00 a day plus their boad to work the lower-grade deposits. Despite early riches and fast growth, the Gila City placer deposits soon played out. Later, when the river shifted its course, the camp was abandoned and there is no longer any evidence of its existence

The Gila City Placers occur on the narrow gravel-mantled pediment at the North end of the Gila Mountains formed on a bedrock of Tertiary sedimentary rocks that are faulted against the schist of the main mountain mass. Gold has been found in gulch and bench gravels of Quaternary age that mantle the Tertiary sediments to depths of 15 feet. The area of gold-bearing gravel extends from 1/4 mile east of Dome to 3 miles west of Dome, but most placer mining is centered around Monitor Gulch, 1 1/2 miles west of Domehe gold in the gravels was found at or near bedrock in gulches, but much gold was recovered from bench gravels in the area. Gravels more than 15 feet above bedrock have not been profitable.

After the initial boom period, mining continued in the district on a much reduced scale; all the known productive ground is said to have been worked over at least once. Most of the gold was recovered by first drywashing, then by wetwashing the dry-panned concentrates at the Gila River. A few large-scale operations have been attempted, but these were unsuccessful.

Tips: Get off the main roads and into the tributaries, look for evidence of old workings. Move slowly and dig all targets. Always make sure you have a topo map of the area you wish to hunt. Remember to stay off marked claims and please remember to FILL ALL HOLES!! There are allot of small nuggets here so work slow and careful...

Although they had a Post office in 1858 and was discontinued in 1863, the town was destroyed by flood in 1862. The town had 1200 residents and sat right on the Gila River. It was one of the first boomtowns in Arizona but didn't last long as the mines and Placer gold played out. Nothing remains of the town today.

Harqua Hala-The gold in the harquahala Mountains was digovered back in 1762 by Spanish prospectors but the hostile Indians drove them off. It wasn't until 1888 when Harry Walton, robert Stein and Mike Sullivan ventured out and staked their claims.

The Bonanza and the Golden Eagle veins brought miners and merchants and the town of Harqua Hala.was born with a stage line that ran to Sentinel. The first store started in a tent with a five gallon jug of whiskey and written about in a newspaper they called the Harqua Hala Miner.

Hubbard and Bowers got the mine and built a twenty-stamp amalgamation mill. One of Hubbard's engineer, decided to cast gold into four hundred pound bars making them harder to steal.

Higrading was don at th harqua Hala Mine with the help of the children who by signal would sing louding drowing out the sound of their fathers scaping the arrastr beds for residual gold.

Within four years the ore body ran out and for the next forty years, miners came and went with Harqua Hala finally going down to a cluster of deserted buildings and ruins.

In June of 1905, Jesus Eredias came to Phoenix yesterday morning on an unecessary mission of vengeance. He wanted in the first plce to know what, if anything, had been done with the murderer of his brother Pedro Ezedias, who was killed i the Harqua Hallas about a year ago. Eredias had just heard of it. he is a hunter of lions and other big game and for a year had been operating in the souther part of the territory and Mexico. He had been employed on various large cattle ranches to keep the lions thinned out. He had heard nothing of his brother, but he did not wonder at ataht for much of th time he was where letters would hardly reach im; besides, he and his brothr were not frequent correspondents.

The brother was in the Harqua Halas when he went away and Jesus Eredias set out to pay him a visit. When he reachd Bill Moore'[s ranch on the Aqua Fria, a woman there told him that his brother was dead, had been murdered. She related all the circumstances of the murder but she had not heard that the murderer had every been arrested. Accordingly he came to Phoenix and inquired of the police who referred him to othe sheriff's office. Deputy Sheriff King began an inquiry and soon found out thtat Deput Sheriff Balxz knew all about it.

The murder occurred in Yuma County and the murderer was soon after arrested, convi cted and sentenced to fifteen years in the territiorial prison where he is now. the killing took place over a women. the brother of Eredias was killed with a rock and his body was thrown into a deserted shaft where it was soon after found with th skull crushed.

Memorial to California pioneers massacred by Indians in 1849 and buried in what became the Harrisburg Cemetery

Harrisburg- The town was founded in 1886 by Captain Charles Harris, Canadian and Civil War veteran and Arizona's Territorial 'Governor Tritle. The Ore Milling and Mining and the Harris Milling and Mining set up here and employed a large number of men.

The cemetery is most interesting with its white quartz rock momument topped by a silhousette of a covered wagon, in memory of pioneers who were brutally massacred by Indians when they campd over night near a waterhole. Months later their burned wagon and bleached bones were found by other emigrants who took the bones and buried them in a small knoll. They were honored in 1936 with the monument by the Arizona Stqate Highway Department who cleared the area and erected the memorial.

October 9, 1905

Arizona Republican Newspaper

The scattered remains of a man are lying on the desert, twenty-five miles beyond Winter's Wells on the road from Buckeye to Harrisburg and Salome. They were found there last Friday morning by a couple of Mexicans on their way to salome. Also found wre alot of papers which they turned over to D.W. Hall of Grace Valley Development Company. A letter was received at this office yestrday morning from Mr. Hall containing an account of the idscovery and enclosing the papers. The body is scattered along the road and about ten feet from it. The letter said that it could be easily found and anyone traveling along the road could see it.

Acting Coroner Burnett was informed by the Republican and under his directions a dead wagon from Merryman and More's was sent out to gather up the remains and bring them back to Phoenix.

The body is supposed ot be that of Marion C. Fanner, an old soldier, an inmate of the Soldier's Home in California but absent on leave. this suppositionis based on the papers found in the vicinity of the body. One of the papers is an official postal card from the Pacific Branch, National Soldier's Home for D.V.S.. It is dated May 29 and addressed to Fanner at Roosevelt. The card notified fanner, who is described as late of the 62nd Regiment, Ill, Ing. Home Company D., that is furlough from the home is extended sixty days from that date. There is also a black application for pension.

Mr. Marryman before starting his wagon called on E.B. Winters for directions about the road and succeeded in arousing his lively interest in the case for the reason that he had an old man in his employ at the wells who is an old soldier and an inmate of the Home on leave. He had lately lost his papers, but his name is Selby. The body or what is left of it will probbly be brought in late today.

Bones of Fanner

October 12, 1905

A telephone message was received yeserday by Merryman and Moore from A.H. McLellan who left on Sunday afternoon after the remains of M.C. Fanner which had been found on the desert. the message was sent from Buckeye which Mr. cLellan had reached on his return. He said he found the remains without trouble. He left buckeye last night but will camp on the way, reaching Phoenix possibly before.

On Pieves of Fanner

October 13, 1905

A.H. McLellan returned yesterday at noon with what remained of M.C. Fanner. all of the body could not be found as it had been dragged around by coyotes or vultures. An inquest was begun by Justice Burnett. A physican will examine the body today determing if there was foul play.

Hyder- Threes miles to the north after Ague Calinte was one of the places that George Patton forces trained for desert warfare in World War 11. Very little remains of the place. Take Exit 87 on I-8 and drive nine miles north. Hyer is after Agua Caliente (or in Spanish "Hot Water).

Kofa- It was 1896 when Charles Eichelberger was prospecting in the sSouthwestern edge of the S.H. Mountains, now called th kofa Mountains. Almost out out water he headed up a canyon in sure of a tank. After a long climb, he locatd a tank, filled his canteen and sat down to rest when he saw someting shiny about five feet away. It was a gold outcropping that developed into the famous king of Arizona Mine. He joined with h.B. Gleason and Epes randolph and organiized the King of Arizona Mining Company.

The Post Office, established in 1900 lasted twenty- eight years. Kofa stands for King of Arizona and this King had trouble with the problem of no water. The first year they discovered ore, the mine couldn't even support a town. After several years, Kofa had a boardinghouse, bunkhouse, company store, saloons and a school. Cornishmen, Mexicans and Chinese made up the work force. the "cousin Jacks" were the miners, the Mexicans chopped and sold wood for running the mille and the Chinese were the cooks for the company. They built a well five miles from the town site and also built a mill. The ore ran out in 1910 but the town hung on till 1928.

Joaquin Nogales tried to burn down some buildings at Kofa and got six years for attempted arson. 'Pinky Dean" a drunken Negress slashed up a miner with a knife in her apartment in the back of a saloon.

Today Kofa is located within a military bombing range on private property in the KOFA, National Wildlife Refuge. It is also with the Kofa Game Range beneath a military aircraft maneuvering range. A few buildings and a cemetery are all that remains.

Head north on Hwy 95 for 54 miles to Stone Cabin ( Stone Cagin is only a service station and mobil homes. The road to King of Arizona (KOFA) and North Star mines branches off to the East at Stone Cabin. Head East on the gravel road for 23 miles until it crosses a dirt oad which goes North to the North Star Mine and South toward Kofa. One the way you will pass the Rob Roy Mine and Mill. kofe is abut two miles pass the Rob Roy Mine.

La Laguna- The town came about because of placer gold and didn't survive long. It only existed from 1860 to 1862. It had a few stores, a few placer miners and a small camp. When La Paz gold struck everyone left. Today the site is under Mittry Lake where the only residents are the fish.

LaPaz- Captain Pauline Weaver, a noted Arixona frontiersman discovered placer gold near the Colorado River in 1862. He told the news at Fort Yuma while he was there getting supplies and started an immediate stampede to the new district. The placers were rich. the miners stayed and built La Paz and woked the gravels for about seven years.

Things were rough for there was little to eat by mesquite beans and fish. the miners and gamblers would spread their blankets on dusty streets and play card for gold nuggets. A thief who had been stealing from the stores was caught and with no real law, the citizens held a trial. He was sentenced to 25 lashes. He was give $5 and tol to hit the oad and not come back.

After one year, Mexicans, Indians and white men numbered fifteen hundred and it was an important landing dand freighting point on the Colorado River and was the county seat of Yuma until 187l. Stores included Gray and co, Joseph goldwater and Isaac Goldberg with a blacksmith, baker, gardener, barber, liquor dealer, pysician, harnesmaker,lawyer, brewer and shipmaster.

Onece the Colorado River changed it course, La Paz was abanoned by the steamboat landing and when the placer gold gave out, people moved six miles down the river to Ehrenberg. A flood wiped out the only remaining builing in 1910.

Mineral City- See Ehrenberg

Mohawk- The location of a five-stamp amalgamation mill completed by June of 1897. It was on the Gila River about thirty-five mile south of the King of Arizona mine. Water for the mine was hauled from here in old wine and whisky barrels by mule team. It tasted terrible and made many of the miners ill.

Norton- Norton was the destination for the ore hauled down from the Silent Camp . It started in 1870 and had a population of about thirty residents. It had a post office and a general store in the mid 1880s. When silver prices took a dive, both Silent and Norton's Landing died.

Obregon-

Olive City/Olivia/ Bradshaw's Ferry-Sitting near a ferry landing on the Colorado River, Olive City or Olivia was also known as Bradshaw's Ferry. William D. B. Bradshaw established a ferry in 1863 and charged the following prices for transportion across the river: A wagon and two horses-$4.00; carriage and one horse, $3.00; saddle house, $1.00; footman, $.50; live cattle and horses $.50 a head; and sheep$.25 a head.

There were about one dozed buildings and 19 men in the 1864 census. There were miners, one carpenter, one surveyor, one farmer, one laborer and a superintendent of mines. Probably named for Olive Oatman and at one time was the principal town in the Weaver district. Noting remains in this town about fourteen miles South of Ehrenberg.

Owl Station - In the 1870s Owl Station was a water station in order to get up and over the Mohawk Pass to Aztec Water Tower. In 1928 it was a Stand Oil Service Station on the sand and gravel road between Tucson and San Diego. The camp had seven cabins, a café and a garage. Burned down in the early sixties, it re-opened when I-8 went through and purchased in 1980 by J.L. Foraker and renamed Foraker's Owl.

Exit I-8 from east or west at 54 mile marker on i-8, stay on blacktop,head west,or left,through mohawk mountain pass to appr. 50 mile marker on old 80 hiway[about 4 miles,on the left.

Picacho- Head toward Winterhaven until you reach S-24. Follow S 24 for seven miles. It turns East after seven miles and becomes Ross Rd. Continue straight ahead on the road which becomes Picacho Rd. Do NOT tun on Ross Rd. Be prepared to travel 19.5 miles on dirt road. The old mill is approximately one mile east of the road.

Planet- Richard Ryland discover the Planet copper mine in 1863. The Planet Copper Company began work and a small community grw up with a post office, several general stores and a few private dwelling. It closed in 1917. With no other employment, miners left and the town went ghost.

One of three Silverbell cemeteries

Silver Bell-Regardless of its name, Silverbell was based on copper which was discovered in the 1860s. E. B. Gage and W.f. Staunton took control of th Old Boot and mamoth mine at Silverbell. With th Development Company of America, they organized the Imperial Copper Company. When the Arizona Souther Railroad form Red Rock to Silverbll was finished in 1904 and the Sasco smeltr was built the population roase to three thousand and became one of the most renowned mining camps in the Southwest.

In 1911, there was a bad shaft fire at Silverbell and water problems at their Tombstone properties cased the Development Company of America to go bankrupt and ended their involvement at Silverbell. The American Smelting and Refining Company took over in 1915 and ran until low coppr prices stopped their production in 1921. In 1934, they tore up the tracks to Red Roack and the Sasco smelter was dismantled.

Where Tombstone was the town "To tough to die", Silverbell was the "Hell hole of Arizona". Much of the toughness was tamed by Deputy Sam McEvan. Three days before McEven arrived at Silverbell to take the job as deputy, three murders had been commited. McEven spent the first few months on the job taking away guns, jailing and fining local desperadoes for carrying concealed weapons.

When Ramon Castro killed Cargio Manzo he hid from the law for two weeks in an old abandoned mine shaft. McEven knew he had to bring the man to justice but how to get him out the tunnel without being shot was his problem. He ended up taking an ore car with a lamp haning from it and pushed his self-made bullet proof shield in front of him until he cornered and captured Castro.

The new town of Silver Bell established in 1948 is located about four miles Southeast of the old Silverbell site. Not a trace remains.

Tumco- follow interstate 8 thhirten miles West ot Ogilby Road off ramp (S-34). Follow it north across raiload tracks approximately seven miles. A sign on the left will read Gold Rock Ranch. Tumco goes ot the right toward the Cargo Muchacho Mt. Walk or drive down to the mine.

Polaris- The outcropping, responsible for Polari, discovered in 1909 led to the opening of the pose office that closed in 1914 when Felix Mayhew the founder sold it. Named for the North Star, the place had about 150 residents. The mines played out in 1911. Nothing remains of the old town located on property in the KOFA National Wildlife Refuge. Follow direction to Kofa except turn North instead of South for headind to Rob Roy. It is about one mile from the intersection of the road going South.

Signal- See Swansea

Silent- The Silver district renewed under the direction of George Sills, Neils Johnson, George W. Norton and Gun Crawson who relocated many abandoned claims in 1879. Some of the mines were the Black rock, Pacific, ed Cloud, Silver Glance and Princess. A mill was built and Silent grew up around it.

There was no lumber and little water so the residents dug rather than built their homes.

Along Black Rock Wash, caves were carved out of the hard mudstone bank. Some homes had one large room with a hearth at the far end and others were just shallow holes. The buildings in Silent included three general stores, a hotel and a post office in 1882. A combination saloon and dance hall known as La Cantina La Plata lays in ruins.

Ore was hauled down a wash to Norton's Landing on the Colorado River. Both Silnt and Norton Landings died when silver prices took a dive in 1893.

Swansea-Swansea was the headquarters for the Clara Consolidated Gold and Copper Mining Company. a branch railroad connect them with the Santa Fe at Bouse in 1907 and soon supported 300 residents which grew to 750. The post office came in 1909 and the name changed from Signal to Swansea. The camp had electricity, an auto dealer, a lumber and realty company, general stores, saloons, restuarants, barber, physician, justice of the peace, notary public and insurance agents.

In 1912, Clara Consolidated Gold and Copper Mining Company went into bankruptcy but other companies kept the town alive until the mine closed in 1924. Two cemeteries await visitors.

Yuma Crossing - The location The place is north of junction of First Street and Second Avenue in north/central Yuma (on I-8). Not a ghost town but a nice historical place to visit with numerous buildings. Numerous buildings

Crossing the Colorado River was a dangerous thing in the old days. Only at the place were the Colorado and Gila River meet each another was it possible to cross over. Even though the Colorado river area was searched by Spaniards in the beginning of 1540's, the first Spanish settlement was not founded until 1775, when Fr. Francisco Garces (who lead missionaries together with the soldiers), founded the mission close to the place were the rivers ran together.

The next 6 years settlers terrorized Quechan Indians who lived along the river, destroying their farmland with grassing cattle and horses. After living in terror, the Indians started to kill the soldiers, settlers and Fr.Garces. They killed all except the woman and children. In the next 50 years nobody tried to settle here. A change came in 1829 when Kit Carson came to the place which will get the name Yuma Crossing. He collected more then 2000 pounds of beaver skin during his time here. Carson came back with the military in 1846 together with Copt. Philip St. George Cook and the Mormon Battalion occupied with building the first wagon road through the country witch eventually became Arizona. During the Mexican war (1846-48), Mexican and American soldiers crossed the Colorado River close to the Spanish mission.

Later, streams of people came to California for the gold rush. So many people came that Maj. Samuel Peter Heintzelman in 1850 led a group of 92 men and founded Camp Calhoun on a hilltop on the California side (at that time under Arizona's command) with a great overview over the crossing place. In 1852 this military post called Fort Yuma, the same year as the first steamboat cargo from Gulf of California. One society started growing on the Arizona side, across the Fort.

The first post office, founded in 1857 was Colorado City, but one year later, they changed the name to Arizona City. In 1883, six years after railroad arrived, the need for military protection was over. The next year, the Department of the interior was given Fort Yuma and thereafter to Quechan Indians. In 1866, Yuma became the official name of the post office.Yuma Crossing State Historic Park is situated on 9 acres along the Colorado River in Yuma, Arizona.

It is located at the Fourth Avenue exit south from Interstate 8. After crossing the Colorado River, the entrance to the park is on the east side of Fourth Avenue.

Yuma Territory Prison - Yuma Territorial Prison ("The Old Territorial Prison") is not the Ghost town, but the place was once home for many people. Cells, dark cell, main gate, guard tower and cemetery. Not a ghost town, but the place was once home for many people. The Old prison is on Prison Hill Road in the historic part of Yuma, not far away from Yuma Crossing-Quartermaster Depot. That's not hard to understand why the Yuma was chose as place for the prison. In the territorial days Yuma was (and still is) the hottest and driest place where the settlers chose to build theirs homes. It was 170 miles of nothing to San Diego and 220 miles to Tucson in another direction, and that made Yuma one of most isolated places in Arizona. The Territorial Prison, known as "Hell Hole" and "Devil's Island" opened in Arizona desert on July 1, 1876 with the seven inmates. They entered the prison and locked into the new cells they built themselves. All over the country the prisoners came to Yuma where they lived in cells by 3x3 meters where the temperature were over 110ºF in the summer. Chained to stone floors and alls prisoners sat or stood in dark cells without sunlight.

The prison closed in the year 1909 and in the time of his existence here was a total of 3069 prisoners, of witch 29 was woman. Only 26 prisoners (this is last then 1 each year) were successful to escape from Yuma prison and 8 died from gunshot wounds. 111 prisoners died during they serve their sentences, most of them from tuberculosis witch was passing try the territory. There were no executions in the prison. The only punishment was the dark cell for inmates who broke prison regulations (they were chained to the stone floor) and the ball and chain for those who tried to escape. Prisoners had access to regular medical attention and to hospital, access to schooling, and many of them learned to read and write in the prison.

In 1907 the prison was overcrowded and there was no more room on Prison Hill for expansion. The convicted prisoners build a new prison in Florence, AZ with the last prisoners leaving the Yuma prison on September 15, 1909 when it closed. Yuma Union High School used the empty prison's buildings from and shelter for many homeless families during the Depression. Fires, townspeople who took free building materials and railroad construction, destroyed the prison walls and prison buildings, except the cells, main gate and guard tower. These things that provide a glimpse of how was the life in the prison for a century ago. Across the prison is old cemetery, where they buried their prisoners.

Interesting Facts

Yuma- The silent movie, "The Shiek" starring Rudolph Valentino was filmed here in Butter Cup Valley in 1921.