Today we visited a historic prison site in Yuma. The prison operated from 1876 – 1909. Interestingly, for about 4 years after that, they used the prison grounds as a local high school! After a new high school was built, it sat empty until being used to house homeless families during the depression. Most of the prison has been demolished, but the remaining buildings were fun to explore.

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The prison held both men and women prisoners. Some of the prisoners were charged with polygamy, including several Mormon leaders, which led Mormons to claim religious persecution. An interesting bit of trivia is that this prison was one of the first in the nation to have electricity and running water even though most houses in the area didn’t.

Of course, after that we had to get lunch! We went to historic Yuma and had lunch sitting at a nice street side patio area at the Prison Hill Brewing Company. The owner’s great-grandfather had been a detainee at the prison and many of the menu item were named after prison lingo, like The Snitch, The Verdict, and Flew the Coop!