A close-up with Yuma

An uncommon road marker

In brilliant daylight buffeted by cruel winds, Yuma came into view. The sun beat down mercifully but the winds gusted across the farmed plains. Aside from fans of Western films, Yuma conjures little image to most people.

Lying at a convergence of California, Arizona and Mexico and dependent upon the Colorado River, Yuma does not have the size of Phoenix or Tucson, nor does it serve as the gateway to the Grand Canyon like Flagstaff. Yuma does not have as strong a Spanish influence as other border towns. The old mission sits across the river in California from Yuma’s best-known spot, the infamous territorial prison.

Yuma also receives the nation’s hottest, driest weather. Normal winter day rises into the 70s, while summer days can cross above 120 degrees. Annual rainfall rarely exceeds a few inches, and the sun shines 90 percent of days. Freezes are uncommon but threaten the viability of Yuma’s vast fields of crops, especially its lemons. On the days of my visit, we stayed temperate, right in Yuma’s winter wheelhouse.

One of few forested lots

Even with the Quartermaster Depot and the Territorial Prison preserved as state parks, the city does not push this western image enough. The colonial and Spanish influences are minimal. Old Town encompasses a few blocks near the Colorado but lacked sizzle. Despite arriving in the date season, I missed the Yuma Date Festival, which only runs 9-5 on a single Saturday. Such a festival, stretched over two days or started on Friday evening, could draw more travelers, especially during its comfortable winter days.

Fourth Avenue is a boulevard for the lover of mid-20th century travel, when neon-lit motor courts beckoned weary motorists. Quirky hotels are abound on this stretch of U.S. 80, most notably the Coronado Motor Hotel, a former Best Western renovated into a classically style motor court with blocks of rooms on both sides of Fourth Avenue.

Cauliflower fields ready for harvest

Desert or not, Yuma's terrain is undeniably green. Those hues come from produce, its fields keeping groceries stocked through winter. Prior to dams and diversions, Colorado floods left silt on the plains around Yuma, building farmland in the desert. The greens dominate, as lettuce is the dominant crop. I also saw fields of cauliflower and broccoli.

I arrived with winter harvest in full swing. Everywhere we passed school buses with trailers of portable toilets, the buses ferrying farm workers to the fields. Fields went from lush to deserted in a few hours. Giant fans stand sentinel over the rows of green, their blades only spinning when freezing temperatures threaten the crop. All across the Yuma Valley they wait for the moment. In my brief days, that cold never arrived.

Date palm orchard

Then there are the dates. Yuma grows more Medjool dates than anywhere in the world. Giant groves of date palms had been freshly picked. I regretted not ordering a date shake in Yuma. I had one years ago in Indio and regret not grabbing another in date country.

 Like much of Arizona, Yuma draws big flocks of snowbirds, retirees from northern states escaping from colder, snowy winters (well, not this year). The makeup of the Yuma snowbirds was much different than I expected. Yuma’s population pulls strongly from western Canada.

In three days, I saw scores of license plates from Albert, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. The few non-dive bars we visited catered to the Canadian population. As a result of the senior population, neighborhoods of brick and mortar homes were less common than trailer parks,
which spread from Fourth Avenue up to the Foothills.

Two Indian tribes historically lived in the Yuma area, and both have modern reservations – the Quechan and the Cocopah. The Quechan occupy lands in Yuma and across the river in California, including a major gaming resort on the interstate. Jon works for the Cocopah Reservation, a Yuma-area tribe with three parcels of reservation land – they run a casino/resort, a golf course and trailer park court, plus numerous other enterprises.

Cocopah ramada recreation

At reservation headquarters, where a small museum recounts Cocopah history. With the rich bounty of the Colorado, the Cocopah fished for their livelihood. A band of Cocopah still lived across the Mexican border.

Outside the headquarters stands a recreation of a traditional Cocopah lodge. Despite the intense heat of Yuma summers, the tribe lived here year-round, constructing homes that circulated air in the summer and had subterranean sections for the winter months. The issues found on any Indian reservation reside here but the health of its enterprises place Cocopah on better footing than many.

As the afternoon grew shorter, Jon took me to Saddles of Joy, a non-profit therapeutic riding program that gives children the chance to ride horses and mingle with other animals. Their pens house a herd of horses plus goats, ponies and geese.

Saddles of Joy residents

A veritable army of calico cats wandered the grounds, and several friendly ones accompanied us on your visit to the horse stalls. In a pen of young goats, I was warned to tuck my shoelaces into my boots before the goats worked at gnawing and untying them.

Yuma’s two state historic parks are both worth visiting. The Quartermaster Depot hearkens to a time before Colorado River water diversions, when the U.S. Army depot supplied outposts across Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. Army supply boats traveled up the Colorado from the Gulf of California before rail lines in southern Arizona rendered the depot obsolete. Five buildings from the original depot remain.

Old-timey diving gear

A giant storehouse displays outline how the wild Colorado was backed up behind dams in the U.S. and Mexico, eventually becoming today’s trickle. That’s the tradeoff of year-round agriculture – we can have fresh produce all winter, but massive amounts of water necessary must exact a toll on the Lower Colorado.

The depot catalogs portions of the old plank road that crossed the Imperial Valley and the creation of the All-American Canal and other river diversions, which required divers to descend into pipes to complete the project. Divers in the desert – for some reason, I find the concept entrancing.

Prison guard tower

On a bluff across the Colorado from the Saint Thomas Yuma Indian Mission and the historic site of Fort Yuma, the Arizona territorial prison still looks ominous. I can only imagine prisoners stacked in its tiny cells, roasting away during unforgiving Yuma summers. For more than 30 years, Arizona Territory shipped its prisoners to Yuma.

A converted New Deal-era adobe mess hall houses the exhaustive museum, with exhibits on the prison’s most notorious inhabits and staff (Sheriff John Behan from Tombstone was the territorial prison’s first superintendent). The manifest of criminals includes gunfighters, Mexican revolutionaries, robbers, a polygamist and several dozen women, all with rich stories behind their incarcerations.

Cell block

In a unique twist, the prison housed Yuma High School for four years after replacement by a new Arizona state prison in Florence. Despite locals raiding the prison site for raw materials during the Great Depression, its remaining structures resemble their appearance from the 1890s, including the restored guard tower and the mess hall museum.

 Several prison blocks have been restored, including the “dark cell,” in which only a small crevasse in the ceiling provided light. Only the worst-behaved prisoners ended up here, but in the blaring sun and heat of Yuma, I imagine more than a few prisoners behaved badly for a chance at time in the cool darkness.

The highest structure on the bluff, the prison guard post gives the region’s best views of the Colorado. The river almost seems wild, its closest impoundments hidden a dozen miles to the north. Even in winter, the trees and wetlands along the banks crackle with life, mostly migratory birds.

Along the river, the wetlands and forested patches along the Colorado give faint glimpses into the pre-diversion riparian environment. Like the prison above the river, it can never run as wild as it once had, but the river delivers a powerful statement about Yuma and the swift waters’ neverending role in granting life to the desert.

Guard tower view of the Lower Colorado River