Yuma High School is the oldest high school in Yuma, Arizona.HistoryThe school was established in 1909, when Arizona Territory taxpayers voted to organize a union district from several elementary districts. In September of that year, Yuma Union High School began with four teachers in three rooms near the corner of Main and Third Streets. At the end of the first year, twelve seniors graduated. Yuma High's distinctive mascot came when the original school building was destroyed by fire in 1910. The school then used the Yuma Territorial Prison, which had been closed, for the next three years. Classes were held in the cellblocks, and assemblies took place in the prison hospital.In 1912, the city of Yuma notified the school that the prison was needed as a city jail. The school board carried through a bond election to build a new school, at 400 South 6th Avenue (where the current campus is today). In 1914, school began in the newly constructed "Main" building. That same year, the Yuma football team traveled to Phoenix Union High School to play the Coyotes. Yuma High won the game (and the consensus state championship), and the angry Phoenix Union fans dubbed the Yuma High players the Criminals. At first, this was a fighting word to the school community, but by 1917, it had stuck, and the name was officially adopted by the school board. Yuma Union thus became the only high school in the US to use the mascot; it is also the only high school in the United States whose mascot is copyrighted. References are sprinkled throughout; the mascot wears a blue-and-white prison uniform, the gate to the school's sports fields includes bars from the old prison, and the school's "Cell Block" shop sells themed apparel.
