Tombstone

On Tuesday, Barbara, Toby and I traveled 22 miles south to the town of Tombstone, Arizona.  While there we enjoyed a very rough ride on a stagecoach, had a nice lunch at the O.K. Corral Café, the Gunfighter Hall of Fame and the western atmosphere.  Today, Tombstone is a very dog friendly town. They have water dishes along the sidewalks for dogs to enjoy.  Now, most of the shops don’t allow dogs inside, but the O.K. Corral Café allowed us to bring Toby inside and he sat right next to me while I ate lunch.  Barbara shared some of her turkey sandwich with Toby, which he thoroughly enjoyed.  

Tombstone reminds me of Virginia City, Nevada and like Virginia City, it has a lot of history. 

Tombstone was founded by Ed Schieffelin in 1877.  At the time Mr. Schieffelin was on a scouting expedition in the area.  During this time Mr. Schieffelin would frequently leave the expedition looking for rocks of value on the ground.  The rest of his party would tell him not to as this was Apache country and he may end up with his own tombstone.  Fortunately, that didn’t happen and Mr. Schieffelin found a rock that contained silver, which started the silver boom in the area.  The town of Tombstone rapidly grew as the word of silver in the area grew.  This brought people from all over the country to Tombstone, some good and some not so good.

The population of Tombstone grew to 7,500 by the mid 1880’s, but this was made up of only white males over the age of 21 who were registered to vote.  When including all of the women, children and people of other ethnicities the population was closer to 20,000.

The town of Tombstone was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1881 and again in 1882, but the most notable event that happened in Tombstone was the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.  On the cold afternoon of October 26, 1881, four men in long black coats strode down Fremont Street.  Around the corner, in a narrow vacant lot, behind the O.K. Corral, waited six cowboys.  In thirty seconds, thirty shots were fired at close range.  The gun battle between the Earps, lead by the Marshall, Virgil Earp, his brothers Wyatt and Morgan and their friend, Doc Holliday and the Clanton-McLaury gang left Billy Clayton and the McLaury brothers dead and Virgil, Morgan and Doc wounded. 

If you’re ever in southeast Arizona, be sure to visit Tombstone.  I have included some photos below for you to enjoy.