Yuma Territorial Prison
— — adobe and iron, and the river beneath both.
Not only on a wall.
“The old territorial prison sits on a low bluff where the Gila joins the Colorado at Yuma. Adobe walls, a stone sallyport, and a guard tower above a round water tank. Built by the prisoners themselves in 1876, it held men and a few women through thirty-three Arizona summers. What stands now is open sky, thick walls, and a long view down to the river. — from the studio
Yuma Territorial Prison, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Yuma Territorial Prison stands on Prison Hill, a low bluff above the confluence of the Colorado and Gila rivers in Yuma, Arizona. The prison opened on July 1, 1876, when its first seven prisoners — who had helped build the cells — were locked inside. Across thirty-three years of operation it held 3,069 prisoners, including 29 women, before closing in 1909 when the facility outgrew its site. Today the grounds are preserved as Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park, with the sallyport, guard tower, and several cell blocks intact.
The walls are adobe and locally quarried granite, raised by the inmates themselves. The most photographed structures are the stone sallyport at the prison entrance and the round guard tower above an underground water cistern. Inside, the cell blocks open onto narrow corridors with bunks stacked six to a cell, and the so-called dark cell — a windowless punishment chamber cut into the rock — sits at one end. The surviving structures were stabilized in the twentieth century rather than rebuilt, so the masonry largely stands as it was left.
The park is operated by Arizona State Parks and Trails and is open year-round, with reduced hours through the hottest part of summer; a modest per-person day-use fee covers the museum and grounds. The museum traces the prison's history through inmate records, photographs, weapons, and shackles. Visitors can walk through the sallyport, the main yard, the cell blocks, and the guard tower. Early morning and late afternoon are far more comfortable than midday from May through September.