Best Place to Take Tourists: Yuma Territorial Prison

A hypothetical situation: Suppose friends or family are visiting from out of town and they'll be in Yuma long enough for you to take them to a single local attraction. Where will you take them?

Charles Flynn figures that if you're like most residents, you'll take them to the Yuma Territorial Prison.

More than 100 years after the last inmate left its confines, the “Alcatraz of the Desert,” as Flynn calls it, remains an historic icon famous not just in Yuma but nationally, thanks in part to the attention Hollywood has given it in repeated films and television shows over the years.

And it seems the Yuma Sun readers taking part in the Yuma's Best poll would agree with Flynn, executive director of the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area. The prison, now a state historic park that draws tens of thousands of visitors annually, was picked by respondents as the area's Best Place to Take Tourists in 2010.

And if additional proof of its historic value were needed, Yuma-area residents rallied together in a group dubbed the Chain Gang to raise $70,000 in 2010 to refurbish the prison and keep it open, after state budget cuts had threatened to force its closure.

With the threat of closure now past, efforts in recent months have focused on renovating the prison buildings and on updating and expanding the exhibits, said Flynn, whose organization oversees the it.

Today, exhibits recount not just the years from 1876 to 1909 when the prison held inmates but also the intervening years. One deals with the multiple occasions on which the community came forward to ensure its continued existence as a museum.

Another exhibit documents the prison's connection to Yuma High School, which held classes for about four years after the prisoners were moved out. And yet another focuses on the numerous television and movies in which the prison is either depicted or referenced.

Depending on whether funds are available in the future, he added, other improvements are planned, Flynn said.

One would be to update the film shown to visitors in the park's media room to include the most recent developments.

Another would be to acquire a replica of the Gatling gun that was once installed in the prison's tower to discourage inmate uprisings or escapes.

And a third wish would be to create a three-dimensional exhibit to include recording to depict for visitors the experience of living in a cell.

The prison, locate at 1 Prison Hill Road in Yuma's North End, is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week. Admission is $5 for adults, $2 for children and $2.50 for active military.