Est. 1880 · E.F. Sanguinetti — 'Merchant Prince of Yuma' · Arizona Historical Society — Yuma Branch · Yuma County Historical Society Museum
E.F. Sanguinetti came to Yuma as a teenager in the early 1880s with nothing and learned the mercantile trade working in an established grocery. Within two decades he had purchased the business and expanded into adjacent industries — a mortuary, a bottling company, an ice company that later evolved into one of the area's early electric utilities. His former grocery now houses Yuma's Children's Museum. The family home, a 19th-century adobe on Madison Avenue, became the center of Sanguinetti's domestic life alongside his wife Lyla, granddaughter of José María Redondo, a significant figure in local irrigation projects and Colorado River agriculture.
The couple had three children: Francis Jr., Rose Marie, and Norman. After a domestic separation, Sanguinetti's housekeeper Paws assisted in raising Norman. Sanguinetti died in 1945, by which point the family business had shaped much of Yuma's early commercial infrastructure.
In the 1970s, Rose Marie Sanguinetti converted the family home into a museum through the Arizona Historical Society, furnishing it with period pieces and opening the rose garden to the public. The Arizona Historical Society later transferred management to the Yuma County Historical Society, which operates it under the yumahistoric.org banner. Today the house hosts educational programs, private events, and serves as the departure point for the organization's seasonal downtown ghost walking tours.
Sources
- https://kyma.com/news/top-stories/2023/07/20/special-report-treasures-of-the-desert-southwest-sanguinetti-house-museum/
- https://kyma.com/news/local-news/2023/10/31/historic-downtown-yuma-ghost-tour-offers-haunting-experience/
- https://yumahistoric.org
ApparitionsPresence sensed at doorways and dining room
The paranormal lore at the Sanguinetti House is grounded in its most prominent resident. E.F. Sanguinetti built his fortune in Yuma over six decades, and accounts collected by the museum describe his apparition appearing at the dining room table — sometimes sensed rather than seen — and in the doorways of the house. According to the museum's Vice President of Guest Experience, Yanna Kruse, the incidents cluster around the dining area and the main entrance.
The most specific documented account emerged from a ghost tour in 2023. After returning from the two-hour downtown walk, a visitor approached staff and asked how old the little girl in the dining room had been when she died: 'I saw her sitting at the table. She was crying.' No child was present with the tour group. The question, unsolicited and specific, added an entity distinct from Sanguinetti to the museum's reported roster.
The ghost tours depart from the rose garden and cover murders, fires, and disappearances across downtown Yuma's historic district, connecting the museum's own history to the broader violence of the frontier-era Colorado River trade corridor. The museum manager notes that the tours prioritize historical accuracy alongside the paranormal accounts — there is, she has said, 'no hard proof' of any of it, though the visitor accounts continue to accumulate.
Notable Entities
E.F. Sanguinetti (apparition at dining table and doorway)Unidentified crying girl (dining room — single witness account)
Where this legend is told
