A Wild West Cowboy Tribute

One of the "attractions" that makes most of the top things to do lists in Yuma is the old Territorial Prison. It worked as a prison during the wild western cowboy gun-slinging days from 1876 to 1909. After becoming overcrowded the prisoners were sent to another prison. The prison property  was used as a high school for a few years. During the Great Depression, victims became squatters and used it for housing. The squatters were evicted by 1939 and the city created a museum on site. It is well-maintained today as a state park after being a museum for 19 years.

The museum was nicely arranged and interesting with lots of historical artifacts such as the medical tools used in the prison hospital, the weapons used to guard the prison, interesting facts about some of the prisoners knitting beautiful fine lace or carving into tools and decorative items and other information about the prison living conditions. We enjoyed reading about the history of the prison from stories about it being built - to it supplying electric power to the town of Yuma - to how they kept a water supply - to the life of the prisoners.

The reason we chose to visit Yuma's Territorial Prison state park on this day was because of the event being held there. It was the Gathering of the Gunfighters which was made up of Wild West re-enactment groups. The members of more than a dozen groups were dressed in Wild West attire which represented the time period of 1876-1909. They entertained us with short 20 minute skits and were judged meticulously on the accuracy of their attire and acting. Some of the skits were humorous and found us laughing out loud.

There was a roped off staged area with a backdrop of a set showing an old western town's building fronts. They were well done re-enactments and we were both glad we made it to this.  

I wish we had gotten a picture of many different outfits people were dressed in. The ladies were all dressed in the western fashion of the flamboyant bustled and corset lined dresses.  Plenty of other attenders were in plain street clothes like us. I was surprised at how well-attended this event was.

Photo source credit: https://sorceress2.wordpress.com/tag/1800s-clothing/

I walked up to these guys and asked if I could take a picture with them wanting a picture of some of the actors. After the picture, I learned they weren't dressed as part of a re-enactment group but they were actual western gun shooters. In their words they said, "those groups do the wild west gunslinger acting, but we do the real thing." These guys shoot cowboy style pistols in competition. The lady who was in the booth behind me was Arizona's best competition shooter of 2015.  Some neat connections we learned while talking to these guys, was one has a daughter who is a nurse in the hospital Caleb is working at, and another guy's son is the Nurse Supervisor on night shift of the whole hospital.

Can you spot Caleb in the picture below? 

This post strayed from the travel nurse talk, but I wanted to share about this entertaining local festivity we enjoyed in Yuma. In my next post I'll get back on track with talking more about this travel nursing life, our new home, and Caleb's first thoughts on working his first travel contract.