The time on the clock tower of the Pinal County Courthouse has been 11:44 ever since the building was completed 1891.²  Although a functioning clock was planned, a shortage of funds resulted in the painted clock faces which are correct two times a day.  The architectural clock also seems to be frozen in time in Florence.  The Courthouse is the oldest public building in daily use in Arizona.

Other historical buildings abound.  The Chamber of Commerce is housed a the Bunenkant's City Bakery building which was built 1890.  

The Florence Chamber of Commerce in the Brunenkant's City Bakery building at 291 Bailey Street.    2-01

Florence was one of the earliest settlements in Pinal County.  The town was named by Governor Safford in honor of his sister.⁴

Florence was the home town of Earnest W. McFarland (1894-1984), the only Arizona politician to have served in the U. S. Senate (1941-1953), as governor (1955-1959) and as the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court (1965-1971).  When he was not serving in public office, he was a teacher, an attorney, the Pinal County Attorney, and television station pioneer, founding KTVK.  McFarland Historical State Park on the north end of Main Street honors the town's and possibly the state's most illustrious citizen. ⁵

One new feature at the Florence facility was the death chamber.  Originally located on the floor above death row, the chamber consisted of a scaffold from which the condemned prisoner would be tethered loosely by the neck, and a trap door on which he would stand.  In executing the sentence, the door would be released allowing the body to fall into the room below.  A total 28 inmates were executed by hanging at Florence while that was the method of execution in Arizona.

In 1933 Arizona adopted a new method of execution which had been first used by the neighboring state of Nevada in 1924.  Seeking a more humane way to carry out the death penalty, executioners in Nevada attempted to pump poison gas into the cell of a condemned prisoner while he slept.  When they found that escaping gas made this impossible, the gas chamber was born.

Whether the execution by gas is more humane than by hanging may never be answered, since those who really know aren't telling.  Properly done, death from hanging can be instantaneous, since the drop from a sufficient distance will cause a rapid fracture dislocation of the neck.  Too much of a drop and decapitation results--gory for the witnesses, but still instantaneous.  Too little of a drop and death will result from slow asphyxiation lasting as long as 45 minutes, with its own gore--engorged face, protruding tongue, popping eyes, defecation, and flailing limbs.

Before Caryl Chessman was executed in California's gas chamber in 1960, he told reporters that he would nod his head if he was in pain. Witnesses reported seeing his head nod for several minutes.  At least one physician has described death by poison gas as similar to the pain felt by a person experiencing a heart attack where the heart is similarly deprived of oxygen.

More humane or not, 38 executions have been carried out in the gas chamber in Florence.^P1  A further attempt at humane executions was made with the adoption of lethal injection on November 23, 1992.  The first state to adopt this method of execution was Oklahoma in 1977.

In lethal injection, the prisoner is strapped onto a gurney, and a needle is inserted into his vein.  A tube connects the needle to equipment to dispense the chemicals in an adjoining room.  A second needle and line are similarly attached as a backup.  At the designated time, the prisoner is first given an anesthetic (sodium thiopental) through the needle, which puts him to sleep.  This is followed by a chemical (pavulon) that paralyzes voluntary muscles and stops breathing, and a third chemical (potassium chloride) to stop the heart.  As of November 8, 2000, 20 executions have been conducted by lethal injection in Arizona.

Because of the appeals process, an inmate sentenced to the death penalty may held on death row for a substantial period of time.  As of March 15, 2002, there were 127 men on Death Row in Florence.  The two women on Death Row are in the Phoenix Perryville facility.^P2

Death Row residents seem to have their own groupies, suitors and sympathizers.  Although inmates are prohibited from communicating on the internet, there sites where one can locate a real pen pal on the internet.  Voices from the Inside list 11 Arizona Death Row prisoners seeking to correspond with those on the outside.

1.           "Table DP-1. Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 2000--Arizona," American FactFinder, U.S. Census Bureau.

2.           Time also stands still on. but at 12:35, on the clock tower at Paradise Valley's Camelback Resort.

3.           Florence Chamber of Commerce, 291 Bailey Street, Florence, 2-10-01.

4.           Will C. Barnes, Arizona Place Names, The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1997, p. 164.  The McFarland Collection, Pinal County Library, accessed 3-17-01.

5. Marshall Trimble, Roadside History of Arizona, Mountain Press Publishing Company, Missoula 1986, p. 88-90, 419-420.

Sources for Arizona State Prison

P1.        As of 11-28-2000. Although the death penalty is now carried out through lethal injection, prisoners sentenced prior to adoption of the law on November 23, 1992, may choose gas or lethal injection.  "Arizona State Prison Complex- Florence," below.

P2.        A list of inmates on Death Row, a synopsis of each crime, and the inmate's picture can be seen at "ADC Inmates on Death Row," below.

__________, "DEATH PENALTY HISTORY," Arizona Department of Corrections, accessed 3-21-02.

__________, "Early Agency History," Arizona Department of Corrections, accessed 3-21-02.

__________, "Arizona State Prison Complex- Florence," Arizona Department of Corrections, accessed 3-21-02.

__________, "Gas Chamber," The Death Penalty - Teacher Edition, Michigan State University Comm Tech Lab and Death Penalty Information Center, � 2000.

Robert Robb, "DEATH PENALTY JUSTIFIED, BUT IT'S NOT THE BEST IDEA." The Arizona Republic, 02-09-2000, pp B11.

Marshall Trimble, Roadside History of Arizona, Mountain Press Publishing Company, Missoula, 1986, pp. 86-90, 419.

This page was last revised on 07/13/04.