Tales from Tombstone

Noticing we were just twenty miles from Tombstone, Chorro and I decided to check out what I supposed would be an Arizona ghost town from frontier days. It seemed like a good opportunity to wander around, maybe find some old buildings for pictures, maybe locate Boot Hill, and let Chorro have some quieter outdoor time (he was still pretty mellow from his hike in the hills yesterday and agreed he could walk on the leash today).

We drove into town and first noticed Tombstone's Courthouse, built in 1882, when Tombstone was the county seat of Cochise County.

Driving on toward the center of town, we were surprised to discover that this little town has been restored to its early days and is now a highly commercialized tourist town.

Tombstone, a silver mining boomtown of the1880's, was estimated to have a population as great as 20,000 people. It's broad and long main street, "Allen Street," had more than 100 saloons. The hard-packed dirt streets lend an air of authenticity and I could imagine the activity in this little town more than a hundred years ago.

Tombstone's population today is about 1500 people and apparently they all dress up in period costumes and wander about the streets during the weekends. :-)

Buckboards, stagecoaches, and chuckwagons are part of the scene.

Many, but not all, of the businesses today are reconstructions or restorations of the earlier shops and saloons.

These two buildings stand as they did in their earliest days. The "Bird Cage" was the town's theatre and local entertainment center. Its contents date back to the late 1880's when it closed. It was not reopened until the 1930's, and the new owners saw its value as a museum. It featured performances in 14 cages, suspended from the ceiling, where ladies of the evening entertained. I didn't see the cages, but the building is really jam-packed with memorabilia and it seems likely that there is at least a single one preserved there. These boxes on the second level would have afforded a great view of the entertainment. I was interested to learn that Lilly Langtree, the object of Judge Roy Bean's affections, performed here.


Downstairs are the famous poker tables where the longest known game of poker was played. It lasted more than eight years!

And the original home of the "Tombstone Epitaph," a newspaper which still publishes, although it has not published continuously. Inside you can see the old printing press, shipped here with great difficulty in the early 1880's.

Here's where Tombstone's most famous citizen, Wyatt Earp, along with two of his brothers and Doc Holliday fought some members of the "Cowboys" band of outlaws at the "Shootout at the O.K. Corral." The O.K. Corral was actually located behind this area and most of the gunfight took place in the street. Three of the "Cowboys" died and Wyatt's brothers and Doc Holliday were injured. Wyatt and his friends were actually charged with murder after this fight, but a judge ruled there was not enough evidence for the case to go to trial.

Here I thought I discovered what might have been Tombstone's old railway station, but I later learned that the railroad never came to Tombstone, a probable reason it really didn't survive after the silver mines were no longer lucrative.

Then I saw a Wild West-type show of a gunfight coming up shortly, so Chorro and I hiked back to my car where he settled in for a nice nap in the shade while I went to the show.

Here's the set.

There was a grand total of three actors, but they really put their hearts into it and provided a lot of laughs.

On the way out, I noticed this metal sculpture of the coyote howling at the moon and took a quick picture of it.

I didn't know at the time that just a few hours later, I would get an amazing view of that moon rise he must have been howling at.

Today was a good day.