Tag: yuma
Free Eats on Sunless Days in Yuma
YUMA -- This city is so proud of its sunshine that it has always been willing to be on it. According to the Guinness World Record book, Yuma is the sunniest place on earth, with bright skies prevailing an average of 4,055 hours out of a possible 4,456 hours every year. That's 91 percent ...Death of Old Arizona Gunslinger Inspires Well-Known Western Axiom
Bill Downing was one of the most disliked fellows in old Arizona. He was moody, morose, bad-tempered, sullen and surly. That was when he was sober. He got downright mean and ugly when he was drinking ol' red-eye. He was so unpopular that even members of his gang couldn't stand him. It's a historical fact ...The Story of Sarah Bowman: Yuma’s First Citizen Left a Lasting Impression
One of the most colorful ladies who ever rode the old West was Sarah Bowman of Yuma. She didn't fit the common frontier stereotype woman—calico dress, sunbonnet and a youngster hanging on each arm with another tugging at her skirt. In fact, there wasn't anything common about Sarah. They called her the Great Western, after ...Kofa Mountains Weren’t Always the “Kofa Mountains”
Q: What happened to the SH Mountains? I can’t find them on any maps anymore. A: Nothing happened to them. It’s not like they disappeared or something. It’s just that over the years they got renamed, and rightly so. They are now known as the Kofa Mountains, located about 70 miles northeast of Yuma. The SH Mountains ...Lieutenant Amiel Whipple’s Good Deed Saved 47 Lives
On a hot afternoon in 1849 not far from the Yuma River Crossing, a small party of Army Topographical Engineers came upon a young Indian girl wandering in the desert. She was nearly dead from exposure, hunger and thirst. Many would have left the youngster to her fate. It was a tough, unforgiving land where ...Mini-Taj in the Yuma Desert
It's not as big as the Taj Mahal in India, but a little church in the desert north of Yuma was also built for the same reason -- in memory of one man's beloved companion. The Taj was erected between 1632 and 1654 near Agra, India, as a mausoleum for Mumtaz-I-Mahal, a favorite wife of ...Yuma’s Water Tank Art
Most communities adorn their water towers and tanks with either the town's name or first initial, but in Yuma they opted for something more artistic -- a giant tryptich that spreads across the city's three huge water tanks. The city council received gallons of flak when it approved the $50,000 project in 1999, but the ...Early Day Prospecting in Old Yuma County
About 20 miles up the Gila River from Yuma, the community of Dome basks in the desert sun. It's pretty quiet around here these days—a far cry from that prosperous time in the late 1850s when the boisterous boom town of Gila City boasted some thousand rough and tumble prospectors. It was Arizona's first gold ...
