Yuma High has unique history

  Yuma was a dreaded village in the Arizona Territory for the "bad guys (and gals)" who ended up in the prison built here in 1876.

   However, by 1909, the growing population of prisoners was moved to Florence, Ariz., and the grounds of the walled area that had housed the lawbreakers became city property.

  Coincidentally, the Yuma school district was also running out of room.

  So, students became the tenants of the former prison, using the cells, workshops and buildings for classrooms. From 1910 to 1914, high school students were educated at the prison.

  Prior to the years on Prison Hill, Yuma secondary schooling took place on Main Street in a former saloon owned by John Perry, which was
also a location for a courthouse. That location was used from 1872 until a school was built in the 1890s. Elementary school namesake Mary Elizabeth Post taught there and in Ehrenberg until she retired in 1912.

  Graduates in the first class were Olive Alexander, Georgia A. Greer, Lillian Wadin, Edward Power, Roy Hansberger, Edith Kent and Bernadette B. Shelby.

  Among the other students in the beginning enrollment were Eleanor Dunne, Ruby Livingston, Lois Kelley, Myrtle Lynch, Waldo White,  Frances Hodges, Clara Ferguson, Cary Crouch, Amy Greenleaf, Ralph Mitchel, Florence Frankel, Sam Caruthers, Florence Yemen, Louise McClure, Willie Westover, Dean Haughtelin and Harry Westover.

  Published in the 1911 El Saguarro was a "Sonnet to the Abandoned Prison," written by Edith Kent.

  "O thou prison, thou gray stone wall,

  "Which forty years was the dark abode

  "Of many a poor soul whose weary load

  "Had become too heavy, and whose fall

  "Beckoned him only to a gloomy stall

  "Within thy gates, where oft he strode;

  "While, far below, the Colorado flowed

  "In which he longed to end it all.

  "He little dreamed that in season near,

  "Thou wouldst be given a holier mission

  "Or that the place which had been his doom

  "Would soon be the home of our High School dear.

  "Within thy portals, with all its tradition,

  "Is a spot most sacred; to us it is home."

  The faculty listed in the annual included Harold N. Greenwood, principal, who taught history; Miss Anita C. Post, who taught music, Latin and Spanish; Miss Moore, who resigned, was followed by Miss Carolyn Leete in teaching English; Miss Prue Rowan, commercial (typing, a favorite); and Harry R. Doughty, science and mathematics.

  Arizona became a state in 1912 and in 1913 the football team "cellblock crew" - dubbed the "Horned Frogs" - played against the Phoenix Coyotes. Yuma won, and the Coyotes termed them "Criminals" in reference to the school's former occupants. That nickname was officially adopted in 1917 and has prevailed through the years.

  The last complete class year on Prison Hill was in 1913. At the beginning of the next school year, 400 students were moved to the current location in Yuma on 6th Avenue and 5th Street.

  Yuma Union High School was the only high school in this area and drew students from Winterhaven and Bard, Calif., until San Pasqual Bill Manes High School opened in 1958. It also drew from Wellton, Roll and Tacna until Antelope Union High School opened in 1950.

  Some high school students were educated at Mohawk Valley for two years after elementary grades. Students from the east county were bused to and from Yuma daily, or families made arrangements for them to stay with friends or relatives in Yuma.

  Yuma Union High School District now includes Yuma High School; Kofa High, which opened in 1959; Cibola High, 1988; Vista, 1991; San Luis, 2002; and Gila Ridge, 2007.

Pam M. Smith can be reached at psmith@yumasun.com or 539-6856.