It's always a good sign when an area has so many historic attractions, it's hard to know where to begin. Yuma has two standouts worth a detour. Both are so significant they've been the focus of many Hollywood films.Each is an Arizona State Historic Park. One, Yuma Crossing, has also been designated a National Heritage Area by the US Congress, one of only 23 such areas nationally and one of only two west of the Mississippi.

What makes it so special? Why do we recommend a visitor start sightseeing there? Although many of its buildings date to mid 1800s, their role in western history sat on the sidelines until more recently when it was restored by the State of Arizona.

Way back then, forts and isolated cavalry posts throughout this region received supplies in a way hard to imagine today. First shipped up Mexico's Gulf of California, they were then transported up the broad waterways of the Colorado River via riverboat.

Transferred to wagon train at Yuma Crossing, supplies progressed to remote and far flung destinations across the frontier. It was the lifeline of all major supplies.

Before it was tamed by engineered damns and a network of canals, the Colorado was as wide as 15 miles in places when water was high. But because two high granite bluffs limit the river to a considerably narrower width here, it became the preferred crossing place in the southwest region.

Native Americans, early Spanish explorers and missionaries in the 1540s, eventually soldiers and settlers, all used this route dating back many centuries.

Perhaps we were lucky no other visitors were on the vast riverside site day of our visit. The solitude made it easy to imagine what it was like there nearly 150 years ago.

Just across from Yuma Crossing's reception desk, where we paid our $6 admission for two, stands a reminder of early "modern" travel here. Getting across ever-shifting sand dunes that attracted so many moviemakers was a major challenge.

The solution was a 1915 oak plant road that stretched across some of the California segment. Wood construction made it possible for cars to proceed single file at ten miles per hour, with pullouts for passing. Labelled the "Coast of Coast Highway", it was a major route connecting San Diego to New York.

Although Route 80 (now Interstate 8) was paved in 1926, there's still a slight remnant visible (enquire locally). It's much less than what we could still see on our last trip. But the museum segment, complete with a 1909 vintage Ford, gives one an idea of early travel hardships.

This site, often utilised by school groups, in a sense combines portions of all western history. There's a 1907 Baldwin locomotive recalling the role railroads played in opening the frontier. This one pulled passengers and freight two and a half million miles.

The role of steamboats navigating the Colorado is graphically recalled here, along with the massive engineering marvel of dredging the All American Canal, complete with horse-drawn scoops. There's even a typical Grapes of Wrath <$>style 1931 Model A Ford truck here recalling all the dust bowl farmers forced west by devastating drought.

Not far from here, now on Indian land, is an interesting, eroding immigration border station where they were stopped for inspection by California state police.

If those heading into California didn't have proof of a job waiting, or in possession of at least meagre funds, they were turned back, and many settled in Yuma. One hopes the building could be saved as an historic site but so far it's simply mouldering away, with roof tiles disappearing.

What became the commanding officer's residence was originally built in the 1850s. Comfortably furnished as it would have been as a military property, it's exceptionally well done, as are all the other building displays in other vintage buildings.

Spread out across a large slice of land, part was used by the US Bureau of Reclamation in more recent years. Their incredible collection of literally hundreds of photos, all attractively displayed in matching "antique" frames, are a treasury of engineering marvels.

They're a unique documentary of early river steamboats, the railroad's beginnings, and the focus on channelling water to irrigate desert land. That effort grew into an agricultural industry part of America's breadbasket, ranging from many miles of lettuce to date groves.

Transportation to move it across the country is part of the story. But unfortunately that transportation, the coming of the Southern Pacific, is responsible for destroying one third of what could be labelled the west's most infamous and colourful prison. It shows the same level of disregard for a major historic site as if Dockyard were to be destroyed or one of Bermuda's treasured forts bulldozed.

In those days railroads were so powerful, the significance of the site was totally ignored. But what remains is definitely worth a detour. You've most likely seen it on screen in one of many westerns focusing on its chilling reputation — like The Badlander> starring Alan Ladd, Ernest Borgnine and Katy Jurado.

More than 100 prisoners died here between its years of operation from 1876 to 1909, when the number of criminals outgrew the facility.

Iron-barred cells that remain were carved from solid rock and there's no disputing the place has an eerie, haunted mood. The Alcatraz of its day, the most dangerous and notorious criminals of what was a raw, often violent ended up here.

Film fans can get some idea of the place watching There Was A Crooked Man, starring Henry Fonda as prison warden and convicted robber Kirk Douglas as prisoner, with supporting cast of Hume Cronyn, Burgess Meredith, Arthur O'Connell, Warren Oates and Alan Hale. This Joseph Mankiewicz production received three and a half stars from most reviewers.

Warner Brothers actually built an authentic replica of the fortress-like prison Joshua Tree National Monument's high desert country to recapture the original isolation of the prison, now more surrounded by civilisation than it was in the 1880s. This was no false front operation, but sprawled over four acres completely encircled by a wall 20 feet high and four feet thick.

Not the usual good guys versus the bad guys type of western, Mankiewicz labelled it "a cynical western which attempts to show there's a little bit of bad in every man".

The actual prison was even more appalling than its screen counterpart. Except for the section blasted away for the railroad, the old bluff top fortress remains unchanged. Some prisoners considered the gallows a welcome escape from its grim dungeon, where guards dropped snakes and scorpions in to keep them company.

The iron-barred, rock-carved cells sizzled under summer's sun. With other visitors we roamed those musty cell blocks, as we had so many years ago, lingered in a particularly interesting museum and marvelled that anyone survived.

A series of photos in the museum actually show a hanging, which was considered a big public event in those days.

Escape from the hardships meant almost certain suicide — if guards didn't get you, the desert did. Neighbouring Indians were promised $50 per head for prisoners returned alive, a guarantee which sometimes resulted in capture of completely innocent and thoroughly frightened travellers. Yet surprisingly, 28 escapes were successful.

Built in an effort to tame the lawless west, it served as temporary "home" to such frontier headliners as girl stage robber Pearl Hart, Finn Clanton and Buckskin Frank Leslie, well-known in Tombstone's less sedate circles. He received 25 years for his highly developed talent in marksmanship. The 14 notches on his gun handle were not from target practice.

Ah yes, the more times change, the more some things stay the same. Even back then, one had to be a member of the political party in power to be hired at $100 monthly. The warden, a gubernatorial appointment, got $250 a month, plus a good home.

Cockroaches and bed bugs were so awful, wood bunks had to be burned and replaced with iron ones seen in cells today. Besides manual labour, some prisoners made very beautiful lace, as well as shell and onyx carvings, inlaid walking sticks, fancy handles for cutlery and woven horsehair items. Many are displayed in the museum.

Interestingly, hand woven horsehair items are still a speciality in some western prisons. We've purchased some very attractive convict-made horsehair hatbands and belts in Montana.

Don't miss the film shown at the museum. It's excellent, very professionally done and will definitely hold your attention.

Visible across the river atop a bluff is Fort Yuma dating to 1851. Now part of the Quechan Indian Reservation, it was also once used as an Indian boarding school. A portion, including a craft shop, is open to visitors but we ran out of time and missed seeing it.

FACT FILE: See www.azstateparks.com.

lNext Week — Yuma Proving Grounds, an old style Mexican border town and more Yuma area attractions.

Yuma:<\p>Desert, dust and death