Tombstone

What can one say about Tombstone?  It’s one of the best known sites in the world.

At the same time, however, it’s one of the most mythologized places. For the casual visitor, it’s hard to know what is and what isn’t true. On the other hand, perhaps it’s not all that important to most, as long as they’re well entertained.

Ed Schieffelin, about 1880

Ed Schieffelin, about 1880

Tombstone was created because of silver. Mining claims at Tombstone and Bisbee were located within days of each other in 1877.  The discoverer of Tombstone was Ed Schieffelin and what he discovered was silver.  He was told that all he would find out that in a land belonging to the Chiricahua Apaches was his tombstone, and for that reason, he named his first mining claim the Tombstone.  The town’s name soon followed suit.

Other prospectors quickly flocked to the southeast part of Pima County, Arizona Territory, to try their luck.  (And most of them saw it as just that. Another of Schieffelin’s mining claims, again from a comment made to him, was the “Lucky Cuss.”)  Tombstone was a true boom town, just like many of the gold camps of California and silver camps of Nevada in the previous two decades.

It had enough population by 1881 that part of Pima County was carved out and because Cochise County, with Tombstone as its seat.  Tombstone got a newspaper as well.  John Clum, a former Indian agent, said that “every tombstone needs its epitaph,” and thus the famous newspaper was born.  (Editor’s note: I was editor of the Tombstone Epitaph back in the mid-1970s, certainly something I like to brag about.)

Tombstone’s silver estate quickly migrated from the prospector to the corporation and that required lots of miners. Not that speculation didn’t continue to run rampant.  With hundreds of miners want to spend their salaries, there soon were countless bars and gaming establishments, as well as every other type of business the Wild West attracted.

These opportunities, ranging from speculation to gambling to the law enforcement needed to act as a countermeasure, attracted many men such as Wyatt Earp and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil.  And the proximity of an active city gave new life to the cattle industry, which furnished much needed sustenance to a population center so far from the railroad.

There was little doubt that the rural cowboy and the urban businessmen would soon clash.  Just about everyone knows the story of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which is far too complicated to discuss here.  It certainly wasn’t the only gunfight that took place in Tombstone, which was said to have “a man for breakfast every morning,” but it was the most famous, popularized in the 1930s by Wyatt’s own book, a string of movies and the birth of Helldorado.

Within a few years, the Earps had left the community and so had many of the wilder cowboys, some of their own volition, some not.  Slowly, law and order came to the “mesquite.”  Part of the reason, however, was that within a decade of their establishment, the silver mines had given up their easily-won ore and were flooded.

Several times over the next few decades (and again in the 21st century), attempts were made to revitalize Tombstone’s mines.  These efforts were generally short-lived.

Wyatt Earp, in his later years, as he was making Tombstone famous

Wyatt Earp, in his later years, as he was making Tombstone famous

The life of the community underwent and ebb and flow, mostly downhill.  By 1928, the county’s other population centers had voted to move the county seat to Bisbee, and the last real industry of Tombstone was gone. Until Wyatt’s book brought about a resurgence of interest.  Then came Helldorado and a period of interest in Arizona’s dry climate as a cure for many ills, and the town started coming back to life.

Just after mid-century, eastern investors purchased many of Tombstone famous buildings, such as the O.K. Corral and the Crystal Palace saloon, and started investing the its tourist infrastructure.  Interest continued to grow.  Of course the two famous movies of the early 1990s did nothing but encourage that growth and Tombstone again was world-famous.

Whereas there had once been a single troupe reinacting gunfights, today there are several, and not just in the streets, but in venues such as the original Corral and in new structure created just for the purpose.

There are many stories of Tombstone.  Either enjoy those that are told and take them as what they are, good entertainment, or take the time to find a good book or two and learn enough to separate the wheat from the chaff.  That’s good entertainment, too.

An article in a Tombstone newspaper in the early 1880s warned merchants that it they didn’t start minding their businesses, neighboring Bisbee, which was starting to boom a bit itself, would pull customers away.  As entertaining as Tombstone can be, that’s the case today in terms of places to eat and sleep.  So spend an afternoon enjoying the charm of the “town too tough to die,” but come back to Bisbee to take advantage of its restaurants and lodging.