public

Heavily Investigated

Step into the Dark Cell and something steps back toward you — visitors report a crushing dread, sudden cold, and the unmistakable feeling of being watched by something that has had a long time to wait. Cell 14, where an inmate took his own life, is said to carry a presence that lingers. People swear they've heard screaming from empty corridors, chains rattling where no chains hang, and their own names whispered by no one. And if a small girl in a red dress drifts too close — check your arms for pinch marks.

Authorized by Arizona Territory's legislature in 1875 and built partly by the inmates who would occupy it, the Yuma Territorial Prison opened July 1, 1876 — the first seven prisoners moving into cells they had constructed themselves. Over 33 years, 3,069 people passed through, including Pearl Hart, the West's last female stagecoach robber. Overcrowding shuttered it in 1909; it later served as a shelter, a hospital, and a school before becoming a state historic park in 1961. The official record is tidy. The legends it left behind are considerably less so.