Tombstone, Arizona—’The Town Too Tough to Die’

Part 1: Tombstone and its Legends

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I recently rolled into Tombstone, Arizona.

The tourism folks had told me that after checking into the Larian Motel, the best accommodations in town, I could head one block over and be quickly transported to another time.

They were right.

The wide dirt road was to my right and left. Suddenly, a gunfight breaks out in the middle of the street. After this melodrama, a stagecoach came clambering down the street.

I had been whisked away to a time when people worked in the silver mines and famous men like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday frequented the local establishments.

Ed Schieffelin’s discovery of silver made this community legendary. Schieffelin wanted to explore the region near the former Chiricahua Reservation. Naysayers said his Tombstone was the only thing he’d find in the hills.

After finding what he expected to be a mother lode, he sought an expert who said the silver assayed $2,000.00 per ton. As the mining operation grew, so did the need for men. Soon, a tent community sprang up. When word got out about the silver in the area, this village grew into a metropolis almost overnight. In late 1879, their two best mines projected dividends of $50,000.00 per month for the next two years.

Legends

The number one attraction in Tombstone is the Gunfight at the OK Corral reenactment.

I would learn that as communities developed around the Tombstone mines and stamp mills, where the ore was crushed and the silver distracted before being made into bars, the “cowboys” settled on nearby ranches. They provided beef at less than market rates with cattle stolen from Mexico.

After months of lawlessness around town and in Sonora, Mexico, the friction between Wyatt Earp, his brothers Virgil and Morgan, their friend “Doc” Holliday, and the “cowboys” all came to a head. On October 26, 1881, the most famous American West gunfight occurred between the two factions.

Next week, Part 2, A City of Prosperity