FLORENCE - When H. Christine Reid gives a talk about her adopted hometown, she titles it, "Fascinating Florence: Not just a prison town."
Indeed, Florence was a town before completion of the Arizona State Prison in 1912 - just not much of one.
The 1910 census recorded a population of 807, but the tiny town's residents had made substantial contributions to Arizona history.
Florence was home to Arizona's last territorial governor and is the final resting place of the man known as the "Father of Arizona." It has also hosted its share of villains.
The Pinal County Historical Society Museum, where Reid is a writer and researcher, documents its Wild West past.
Its image since 1912 has been all prison, and the museum tells the tales of its infamous residents: Winnie Ruth Judd, the "trunk murderess"; Eva Dugan, the first and only woman hanged in Arizona; and the Hernandez brothers, who were executed simultaneously in a tandem gas-chamber chair, now on display.
Today, the sprawling prison complex, with its miles of chain link and razor wire, is the first view of Florence from Arizona 79, whether you're driving north from Tucson or south from Phoenix.
To minimize the "Prison City" image, a consultant suggested in 2005 that "more prominent signage is needed to direct traffic heading for downtown in that direction at earlier opportunities."
The entire Florence town site is a designated National Historic Site, with building styles that reflect the Sonoran, Victorian and territorial influences in Arizona's fifth-oldest European settlement.
Deputy Town Manager Jess Knudson calls the collection of historic buildings and homes, some renovated and some crumbling, "our cleverly hidden downtown."
Downtown Florence is not really hidden. It is simply overshadowed by its collection of prisons and jails.
Florence has nine ways to lock you up - from juvenile detention to death row - in facilities run by county, state and federal governments and for-profit corporations. And while the original administration building of the Arizona State Prison is a lovely Spanish Colonial Revival building, the rest is blockish dreck behind what appears to be the world's largest collection of razor wire.
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