Between 1928 and 1957—when Arizona had a no-waiting marriage advantage over neighboring California—an estimated 300,000 couples were married in Yuma County. Judges, justices of the peace, and ministers were regularly rousted out of bed by eloping couples who were not content to wait around for business hours to obtain their “quickie” marriages. And while many of the weddings of that era were held in the venues one would expect (churches, chapels, courthouse offices), some marriage ceremonies took place in unique and unusual locations.
Trains, planes, automobiles (and horses)
During Yuma’s wedding chapel era, eloping couples arrived by car, bus, train, and airplane, and a few of those couples got married in the very same vehicles that had transported them to their “Gretna Green” destination.
Jack Oakie and Venita Varden
The railroad depot opened in 1926, just prior to the passage of California’s more restrictive marriage law. In 1975 the old depot was restored and converted into the Yuma Art Center, but, sadly, this Yuma landmark was destroyed by fire in April 1993.
Sister Aimee Semple McPherson and David Hutton
Rev. Coleman’s Drive-In Wedding Chapel
Rev. James Coleman’s Drive-In Wedding Chapel offered couples the option of being married in their automobile. However, Rev. Coleman, who operated his chapel from 1948 to 1954, noted that during those years only a few motorists chose to stay in their vehicles. Not surprisingly, most preferred an indoor ceremony in air-conditioned comfort–while their cars were being washed at the former automotive service station.
During Yuma’s no-waiting era, marriage officials could be called on anytime and anywhere to perform a ceremony. On Sunday January 7, 1934 Yuma’s Justice of the Peace Earl Freeman married an L.A. couple in their car after they tracked him down at the Yuma Polo Field.
Horseback wedding
When Bob Eley and Diane Kling eloped from Los Angeles to Yuma on a Greyhound bus for a Valentines Day 1947 wedding, they had no inkling that they would be randomly chosen to be married on horseback during the 2nd annual Silver Spur Rodeo Parade. The young couple happily agreed to the ceremony which was conducted by Yuma’s tall-in-the-saddle Justice of the Peace R.H. Lutes. The newlyweds later revealed that they had always wanted a big wedding—but never expected “anything like this.” A disaster nearly occurred when rice thrown by parade-goers frightened one of the horses.
Love is in the air
The article on the right incorrectly states that the aerial wedding of May 1, 1934 was Yuma’s first. Nine years earlier aviator Martin Jensen and Margaret Hannigahn were a thousand feet above Yuma when married by Yuma Judge J.H. Smith. But the 1934 marriage of John Dahl and Eleanor Sessler did take aerial weddings to new heights, since the ceremony was performed 3000 feet above the county courthouse.
Yuma Army Air Field
Thousands of West Coast soldiers and sailors facing deployment eloped with their sweethearts to Yuma during World War II and later during the Korean War. But there were also large numbers of military personnel stationed in Yuma County as part of the Desert Training Center and at the Yuma Army Air Field. The YAAF chapel was the site of many weddings, including the quartet of weddings noted in the above article.
Take me out to the ballpark wedding
In sickness and in health
One of the most unusual elopements to Yuma took place in an ambulance. Otto Graf, a patient at the Loma Linda sanitarium, and Catherine Nickel, supervisor of nurses at the sanitarium, traveled to Yuma by ambulance, accompanied by a physician and a minister. While the Yuma newspaper indicated that the groom had suffered a stroke seven years earlier, the San Bernardino article stated that the couple eloped “at 4 a.m. using an ambulance because of the invalid condition of Mr. Graf, who recently suffered a stroke of paralysis.” Regardless of when Mr. Graf’s stroke occurred, the wedding took place in the ambulance while it was parked in front of the Yuma courthouse.
On March 24, 1934 a Greyhound bus en route to Yuma overturned on Highway 81, causing one fatality and several injuries. Nancy Dodges, who had traveled to Yuma with her fiancé James Ray, was one of the most seriously injured passengers. The planned Yuma marriage took place, but with some modifications. Rev. W.S. Brown married the couple in their room at the Hotel del Ming—with the bride’s nurse as one of the witnesses.
Prisoner of love
A Phoenix couple requested to have Justice of the Peace Earl Freeman marry them at the Yuma County Jail. The bride’s father was being held in Yuma on a prohibition-era bootlegging charge, and since his presence was desired at the wedding, arrangements were made to hold the ceremony in the “consultation room” of the Yuma County Jail.
On December 4, 1948 Louis B. Mayer, longtime head of MGM Studios and one of the nation’s richest men, married his second wife, Lorena Danker, at the Yuma County Jail! The couple had eloped by train from Pasadena, arriving at Yuma’s Coronado Motor Hotel at 4 a.m. Hollywood reporters and photographers invaded Yuma after being tipped off about the elopement, so plans for a courthouse wedding were scrapped. Instead, local law enforcement officers escorted the couple to the Yuma County Jail where they were married by Justice of the Peace R.H. Lutes in Sheriff Jack Beard’s jail office.
On November 14, 1936 a real wedding was held in a pretend jail when a San Diego couple was married during Yuma’s Arizona City Days event. The Elks Vigilantes manned a “calaboose” as part of the celebration, and the young couple agreed to be “arrested and sentenced” to a calaboose wedding conducted by Justice of the Peace Earl Freeman.
A courthouse wedding like no other
Tom Mix and Mabel Hubble—March 19, 1932
Yuma’s original Courthouse was destroyed by fire in 1927, so the County had a new facility shortly after California’s new marriage law took effect. Courthouse weddings were regularly held in the office of the Justice of the Peace, the chambers of Superior Court Judge Henry Kelly, and in the law library. But it was on the courthouse steps that movie cowboy Tom Mix’s “public wedding” took place on March 19, 1932–in the presence of 3000 witnesses.
Tom Mix’s wedding to “circus performer” Mabel Hubbell—Mix’s 4th and final wife—was quite a circus itself. Originally, the couple planned to wed on horseback, but the size of the crowd necessitated a move to the courthouse steps. The couple was married by Earl Freeman, Yuma’s famed “marrying judge.” This was a re-marriage, since the couple’s marriage in Mexicali a month earlier hadn’t met the residency requirements of Baja California. At the time of his Yuma ceremony, Mix was in the area for two weeks of filming “The Rider of Death Valley.”
After hours weddings
When Ed Winn succeeded Earl Freeman as Yuma’s Justice of the Peace, he installed an electric sign at his residence promoting his after hours marriage services. Imagine Winn’s surprise when he was awakened by comic genius Stan Laurel at 5 a.m. on New Year’s Day 1938. (Laurel eloped to Yuma three times—twice with the same woman.)
The Earl Freeman residence on Orange Avenue hosted many after hours marriages during Freeman’s tenure as justice of the peace. For example, on October 15, 1933 actress Jean Harlow and cameraman Hal Rosson were married at the Freeman home at 4:30 a.m. after landing at Fly Field an hour earlier. Late night Hollywood elopements to Yuma by airplane had become a popular fad by this time. New issues of movie fan magazines were sure to highlight at least one recent aerial elopement to Yuma, while teasing readers with rumors of Hollywood couples who could soon be “heading to Yuma.”
In a 1991 interview Ersel Byrd, Yuma’s Justice of the Peace from 1950 to 1970, remembered what it was like to offer no-waiting, day or night marriage services: “I lost a lot of sleep. I had a chair I could sleep in . . . Weekends is when you were really busy.”
Ann Dvorak, 19, and Leslie Fenton, 27, were rising Hollywood stars when they eloped by airplane to Yuma on St. Patrick’s Day 1932. They obtained a marriage license at the courthouse and then proceeded to the Methodist parsonage to be married by Rev. Herbert Brooke. Christina Rice’s biography of Ann Dvorak includes Leslie Fenton’s colorful account of the ceremony:
“We went into the little parsonage to be married. A baby sat crying on the floor; an older child was nursing a bruised knee. And the minister called his wife and the housemaid to witness the ceremony. The maid came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. And there they stood, and even before her hands were quite dry, we were married.“
Married in Quartzsite, Salome, Bouse, Parker . . .
Prior to the creation of La Paz County in 1983, northern Yuma County included several communities with justices of the peace who, along with the towns’ ministers, added significant numbers to the total marriages that took place in Yuma County. Note that elopers to Salome could “just walk in” for daytime marriages and “just ring the bell” at nighttime.
On May 24, 1945 legendary entertainer Al Jolson, age 56, eloped to Quartzsite, Arizona with his 22-year-old bride, Erle Galbraith. Justice of the peace E.B. Hart married the couple who had driven from Jolson’s Palm Springs residence to Quartzsite–a more direct destination than Yuma for their “quickie” marriage.
George Hagely succeeded E.B. Hart as Quartzsite justice of the peace in 1946 and held the position until retiring in 1977 at age 82. Hagely estimated that in his 32 years as J.P. he married 43,000 couples. Judge Hagely reportedly had a sign on his home which read, “Let’s Get Married.” (For more about this legendary native son of Quartzsite, visit camelcorps.org.)
Poston Relocation Center—May 23, 1945
In the above audio excerpt from “Passing Poston: An American Story” (2008), Mary Kinoshita Higashi recalls her memorable wedding at the Poston Relocation Center—which was at that time part of Yuma County. For more about the Poston Relocation Center (and this amazing woman), check out my earlier YouTube presentation.
Yuma History Guy 