Territorial Prison at Yuma

Sun - Jan 10th

I'm not sure what this crop is, but it is purple and just getting started. The workers are weeding out all of the green stuff.

Here the workers are taking a break from picking cauliflower. When they were picking, they were really moving. They would grab them, slash off the greens, toss them in the boxes on the side of the machine and hustle on to the next one. There are 100,000 acres of lettuce grown in the Yuma area. The top winter crops are cauliflower, broccoli and spinach. We also saw lots of celery.

We were impressed with how fast they were moving.

This is the United States Territorial Prison at Yuma. Many movies were made here with people like John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Alan Ladd, etc. They were having a western re-enactment day when we were there.

Here's a re-enactment going on with the Ocean to Ocean Bridge in the background. This 1915 bridge made it possible to make a transcontinental road in the southern part of the U.S.

In the cells there were six iron bunks, because the original wood ones provided a place for the bedbugs to live. There was a little toilet pot and an iron ring in the floor. If anyone of the prisoners in the cell misbehaved, all six were shackled to it together. Must have created some strong peer pressure to behave.

This is the prison cemetery. There were 3,069 prisoners (30 women) over the 30 years the prison was open. There are 110 buried here whose bodies were not claimed by anyone.

This is a view from the prison's main tower.

Here are a couple of views from the River's Edge Campground where we are staying tonight along the Colorado River right on the north edge of Yuma.

For those of you up north who are dealing with the snow and cold, John says, "We're pulling for you. We're all in this together."

Tarra