Tombstone, the "Town Too Tough to Die," is a larger-than-life place – an 1880s frontier town built on a fortune in silver, storybook characters Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, a scandalous saloon, brothel and gambling house called the Bird Cage Theatre, a legendary gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and true tales of disaster from fires and floods.
It's also a town that refuses to take things too seriously. Tombstone leaders originally called the street lined with lawyers' offices outside the county courthouse "Rotten Row" and named the town's newspaper the "Tombstone Epitaph." Townspeople also lightened up tombstones in the Boothill Graveyard with humorous epitaphs.
"The great thing about Tombstone," historian John Myers Myers wrote, "was not that there was silver in the veins of the adjacent hills, but that life flowed hotly and strongly in the veins of the people."
Tombstone still has much of that history in place today, winning designation as a National Historic District in 1961 for "one of the best preserved specimens of the rugged frontier town of the 1870s and '80s." Wooden sidewalks run down Allen Street, which is lined with historic buildings. The old courthouse holds the courtroom where outlaws were sentenced to be hanged. And the Bird Cage Theatre still features curtained cages where prostitutes entertained miners and cowhands.
But the town has threatened its historic designation with a hell-bent rush for tourists, leading the National Park Service to issue a warning in 2004 about such practices as replacing historic features with conjectural and unsubstantiated materials, placing false "historic" dates on buildings, installing hitching rails and other features that never existed, and erecting new, incompatible buildings and incompatible additions to historic buildings. The Boothill Graveyard sits on the edge of town and was not included in the historic district because of what the Park Service called its "lack of historic integrity."
Tombstone draws about a half million tourists a year who want to see and experience a bit of the Old West, and the town brings a touch of theater to its storytelling with staged shootouts on Allen Street and at the O.K. Corral. The town's early days also are re-enacted during the Helldorado celebration for three days in October, with many participants dressing in period costume. The name comes from a disgruntled miner's letter to the Tombstone Nugget in 1881, noting that many men who had set out in search of the riches of Eldorado instead found themselves working menial jobs in "Helldorado."
Tombstone has inspired numerous movies, notably "My Darling Clementine," directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda in 1946, "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in 1957, "Tombstone" starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer in 1993 and "Wyatt Earp" starring Kevin Costner in 1994.
Tombstone is located 70 miles southeast of Tucson in the Tombstone Hills of the San Pedro River Valley. It sits at an altitude of 4,541 feet and is surrounded by the Whetstone, Mule, Burro, Huachuca, and Dragoon mountains.
Tombstone History
Tombstone became a Western boomtown for one reason: silver.
Army scout Ed Schiefflin set out prospecting in 1877 after finishing a hitch at nearby Ft. Huachuca and discovered a vein of silver 50 feet long and a foot across in the middle of the San Pedro Valley. He named the claim "Tombstone" because Army officers had warned him that his prospecting in Apache lands would earn him only a tombstone.
Schiefflin and his partners started the Tombstone Mining and Milling Co. and in 1878 sold their Contention claim for $110,000. The claim became the area's richest mine, producing $5 million worth of ore in five years. Schiefflin sold out the rest of his claims to Philadelphia investors for $1 million in 1880.
Schiefflin's discoveries spurred a silver rush that led to the founding of Tombstone in 1879, with the town taking its name from Schiefflin's original mining claim. Lots on Allen Street sold for $5 each, and the town soon had 40 cabins and 100 residents. Two years later, Tombstone was booming with 10,000 residents and the Bird Cage Theatre, Crystal Palace Saloon, a bowling alley, four churches, a school, two banks, two newspapers, an ice cream parlor, 110 saloons, 14 gambling halls, and numerous brothels.
The town, however, had to prove its mettle by rebuilding after a fire in June 1881 destroyed more than 50 businesses. The fire reportedly began when a lit cigar ignited a barrel of whiskey in the Arcade Saloon. A year later, another fire damaged much of downtown, forcing Tombstone to rebuild again.
In 1881, the two-story Schiefflin Hall was opened Al Schiefflin, Ed's brother and business partner, to host live opera and theater and serve as the home for the Masonic Lodge. The building, at Fourth and Fremont streets, is believed to be the largest adobe structure ever constructed in the United States, with its walls 16 inches thick.
Tombstone also won designation as the county seat for the newly created Cochise County in 1881 and built a courthouse a year later at a cost of nearly $50,000.
Tombstone was well-known as a silver boomtown, but what made it famous was the 1881 gunfight near the O.K. Corral. The gunfight wasn't a rare event in Tombstone, or even unusual in the rowdy town, but a writer who was waiting for a stagecoach when it happened filed an account by telegraph for East Coast newspapers. That, plus accounts of the shooting death of Frank Stillwell by an Earp-led posse, fueled Earp's fame.
The gunfight near the O.K. Corral became an American legend with the popular 1946 John Ford Western "My Darling Clementine." The movie was based on a fictionalized biography, "Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal," published in 1931 by Stuart N. Lake. Ford departs in significant ways from the historical facts of the shootout, but he nevertheless portrays Earp, his brothers and Holliday as heroic figures who defeated the Clanton gang.
The gunfight began not at the corral on Allen Street but in a narrow lot on Fremont Street that was used as a back entrance to the corral. About 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds, and three members of the Clanton gang, Billy Clanton and Frank and Tom McLaury, were killed, while Holliday and Morgan and Virgil Earp were wounded but survived. Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne ran from the fight, and Wyatt Earp was unhurt.
Ike Clanton claimed that the Earps and Holliday had murdered his son, but a judge and grand jury ruled against him. In the next five months, Virgil Earp was ambushed and maimed, and Morgan Earp was assassinated. Wyatt, his brother Warren, Holliday, and others pursued the cowboys they thought responsible, with lawmen backing both sides.
In 1882, Tombstone was struck again by calamity. Miners drilling a new shaft of the Grand Central Mine hit water at 620 feet, and before long the silver ore in it and other mines was underwater. Special pumps were brought in to drain the Contention and Grand Central mines, which also benefitted other mines nearby. But a fire destroyed the pumping plant in 1886, and the price of silver fell to 90 cents an ounce.
The boom was over, and two-thirds of the town's residents left. Tombstone's mines had produced an estimated $37 million worth of silver before they closed.
Tombstone lost its status as the county seat in 1929 to Bisbee, and the courthouse was closed. The town, however, pulled together and developed a new livelihood as a tourist attraction, earning National Historic Landmark designation in 1962.
Tombstone Facts
Population: 1,562 (Census estimate for 2007)
Land area: 4.3 square miles County: Cochise
Altitude: 4,541 feet above sea level
Climate: Hot summers, mild winters, and moderate humidity.
Annual precipitation of 14 inches.
Summer weather: July has an average high of 93 and low of 66. Monsoon storms in the summer can bring severe thunderstorms with heavy rain, large hail and strong winds.
Winter weather: Snows are rare. January has an average high of 60 and low of 34.