Tombstone (120) - (from Tucson)

We chose to drive to Tombstone, as it was the most distant of all the locations we would like to see while we were there. The following day (New Year's Eve) the weather was cold and bleak and as Tombstone is at an elevation at about 4500ft and we were around 2500 feet, a very cold day indeed was expected. And cold it was as we were greeted by snow showers on our way there.

As we arrived at the small township of Tombstone, we didn’t see any tourist signs directing us to a visitors centre and ended up driving right through town and out the other side. We did a u-turn once all signs of civilisation disappeared and drove slowly back through Tombstone, this time looking more carefully. We saw a couple of cars turning off the street we were on, and figured they must know more than we know (which was zero) and where to go, so we turned off at the same street and that led us to the former courthouse built in 1882 and the tourist area, only two blocks from the street in which we were.

The snow showers were confined to patchy areas and it wasn’t settling on the ground to a great depth. However, it was still snowing when we arrived, and that combined with a gentle breeze made it feel much colder than the actual temperature of 0°C.

We walked about town, exploring the old buildings and quite a number of people were dressed in clothing of the era; that combined with horse drawn carriages made it feel more authentic. The historic area of town is not large, only three small blocks wide by about six blocks long and many of the old stores are gift shops selling Indian jewellery, western wear, T-shirts, and other souvenirs. Several of the western wear shops sold period costumes.

If you’ve read or heard about Tombstone or the shoot-out at the OK Corral, Tombstone evokes images of old west gunfights, tough cowboys and dusty streets. For the most part the dusty streets are gone and have been replaced with bitumen, and the centre of town off Allen Street (the main street) has been closed to vehicular traffic, only accessible by foot or horse-drawn stagecoaches.

Tombstone was founded as a result of Ed Shieffelin finding silver in the nearby mountains. Ed was a scout for the US Army headquartered at Camp Huachuca (wha-CHEW-ka). He had a hunch there was silver in the hills and he would frequently venture out into the wilderness to "look for rocks." The soldiers at camp told him the only stone you will find out there is your tombstone.

Ed eventually found silver in 1877 and he appropriately named his first claim the Tombstone Mine. Word of Ed's success spread and soon other prospectors, gamblers, cowboys, homesteaders, speculators and businessmen flocked to the area. The town was laid out in 1879 on the only level ground near the mines, which was called Goose Flats. The town was named Tombstone after Ed Shieffelin's mine.

Tombstone is most famous for the gunfight that took place in 1881 between the three Earp brothers and John Henry "Doc" Holliday on one side and the "cowboys" (the Clantons, the McLaurys, and Billy Clairborne) on the other. The site of the gunfight is said to have been the OK Corral, but it actually started on Fremont Street and ended a short distance away in a vacant lot that is down the street from the rear entrance to the corral.

The gunfight took place to the right of Fly's Photography Gallery and boarding house. "Doc" Holliday (who was a dentist, not a doctor) had a room in the boarding house that he shared with his girlfriend, "Big Nose" Kate Horony.

A daily gun fight re-enactment is staged at 2.30 near exact location of the original shoot out, and to maximise their potential tourist dollar, this takes place behind a closed wall section; entrance is by ticket only and if you pay $10/person, you also were allowed to see a multi-media presentation that’s called the Tombstone Historama. Actually, you can see pay and see either separately, but if you’d like to see both it’s cheaper to buy the tickets as a package. As with most places we visit on our USA journey, we paid to look at both because we may never have another opportunity.

The Historama is a combination of a movie and a large, rotating diorama showing the town of Tombstone at various stages during its history. The town boomed through the mid 1880s with a population estimated to be around 15,000. As the silver diminished, the mines went deeper and deeper.

Once the mines reached the water table, the mines flooded. Attempts to pump out the mines were marginally successful for a few years, but eventually proved to be too costly for the small amount of ore that remained. By 1930, the population of Tombstone had declined to about 150. Today, tourism has revived Tombstone, and there are about 1500 year-round residents - it’s no wonder Tombstone has been promoted as "The Town Too Tough to Die."

Following the 20 minute Historama, we had enough time for lunch before needing to watch the gunfight re-enactment. We walked across Allen Street and up a short distance to Big Nose Kate’s restaurant. It was packed with more 100 people seated at tables and beside the bar listening to live music; luckily as we entered, a table for 5 became available.

Once we had finished lunch, we headed for the Tombstone Epitaph to pick up reprints of the newspaper from 1881 with the story of the OK Corral gunfight. These came as a part of the gunfight package and it was interesting to look at their museum that had displays of old printing presses and type-setting equipment.

Time passed quickly and we soon needed to walk to the staging area of the gunfight. Outside the walled off area there are mannequins positioned as depicted in a sketch made by Wyatt Earp many years after the battle. About 100 people were standing in a huddled group outside the closed entrance, hoping in some way to stave off the biting cold wind blowing through this area. Someone was forlornly trying to get us all into a single file line and was threatening to keep the entrance doors closed until we all complied....someone else opened the narrow door and as people entered and had their ticket taken, the queue slowly conformed.

The Earps are in black, "Doc" Holliday
is in grey and the cowboys are in tan

We took some of the last remaining seats on the aluminium bench seats that felt as if they’d been in a freezer overnight. Most seats at the top of the grandstand where we sat were exposed to the weather and the previous snowfall had left then with a light dusting of snow.

Actors dressed in original costumes as per the mannequins outside entered and left and the banter was setting a pre-amble to the characters leading up to the fight. This initially seemed a distraction, however, the gunfight itself only lasted 30 seconds in which time about 30 shots were fired. It surely would have been a disappointment to have waited, queued and warmed and dried the seats for a show lasting all of 30 seconds!

The initial gunshots were very loud and frightened many people including me as can be witnessed by the sudden jumps in the video I was taking at the time. The fight left the two McLaury brothers dead and Billy Clanton, whilst on the ground dying, was still asking for more bullets to continue the shootout. Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp and "Doc" Holliday were wounded and Wyatt Earp was unharmed. With the gunfight taking place at such close range, it's amazing anyone survived.

Although the gunfight has been the subject of numerous movies, books and dime novels and is usually portrayed as a classic battle between good guys (the Earps and "Doc" Holliday) and bad guys (the cowboys), the story is a lot more complicated than that. There had been friction between the Earps and the cowboys for some time. Some say it was personal and some say it had its roots in the Civil War years before with the Earps (who were from the east) representing the north and the cowboys (who were from Texas) who represented the south.

Virgil Earp was a deputy U. S. Marshall at the time of the gunfight, but the Earps were viewed by their enemies as tyrants. The cowboys on the other hand, were a loosely organised gang of cattle rustlers, horse thieves and robbers. However, they were generally easy to get along with as provided you didn't cross them, and they were fairly popular in town because they had a lot of money to spend. The Earps and "Doc" Holliday were exonerated of any wrong-doing after the gunfight.

At the other end of the entertainment spectrum was the Bird Cage Theatre on Toughnut Street. It was named for the Tough Nut Mine that was down over the hill from the street. The Bird Cage featured drinking, gambling, bawdy entertainment and "ladies of the night." Today, the Bird Cage Theatre is a museum.

We had a little time left in the afternoon to look at a haunted house that Chantelle had asked about a number of times during the day. However, Rochelle didn’t want to go inside and the lady who sold us our tickets kindly offered to look after her while we were inside. As it was only a 4 room display, we hesitantly accepted her offer.

When we entered the third room that had a realistic model lying on a mortuary table, I noticed it appeared to be hinged at the waist and thought I was alone in seeing the hinge, however all of had seen it and Chantelle became very scared because she didn’t want to see this thing rise from the dead - I also noticed Grace move away from the table to corner and she too looked un-nerved. Chantelle insisted on leaving and wanted to wait outside with Rochelle, so, after a quick glance into the 4th and last room, we all left. All in all, our venture there lasted less than 3 minutes, but certainly enough time to leave an indelible mark and cement (for the time being) ideas for future visits to haunted houses.

Snow on the Chev's tray cover

As we were driving out of town towards our camp ground, we almost drove past Boothill Graveyard without stopping. The graveyard had been recommended as a stop, but as it was very late afternoon, the temperature was down to -2°C and the snow showers had become more persistent, I was the only person to exit from the warmth inside the Chev.

The house is now a private residence, but it is set up to look as it did back in the day, complete with fibreglass horses at the hitching post out front. Boothill has the graves of many of the unsavoury characters of Tombstone including those of Frank and Tom McLaury and Billy Clanton who were killed at the OK Corral gunfight.

Although I didn’t spend time wandering about, I’d heard the epitaphs were very interesting. I’d read about a few and they’re worth repeating: “Unknown - Found in Abandoned Mine”, “Stabbed”, “Killed by Indians”, “Shot”. And my favourite one read – “Here lies George Johnson...Hanged by mistake 1882...he was right, we was wrong, but we strung him up and now he's gone.” The west was indeed a wild and woolly place.

That night we joined the New Year's Eve party in the campground rec hall, however, the following few days were spent very quietly as I had developed a bad chest cold; fortunately the rest of the family didn’t catch it. This delay prompted us to lengthen our stay to seven nights because of quite a number of other things we wanted to see. The weather had improved remarkably and was around 20°C during the day dropping to +6° overnight.