Our favorite way to go to Tombstone is via Bisbee.
Bisbee in itself is a neat town with quite a history but, on to Tombstone.
Back up a minute. Let's start at Benson and Karchner
Caverns, go on south to Sierra Vista and Fort Huachucha. They
have an excellent museum depicting what life was like when the fort
was new. From there take Route 92 to Bisbee then head northwest on
Route 80. Drive through hilly land very much as the early settlers
saw it. In a little over an hour suddenly, there it is! Sitting on
a hill. It looks like a movie set, and sometimes it sort of is but,
it is a real town with real people living in it with real jobs. It's
been like that since the 1800's.
A precocious friend of Jacque's family named Vera (the wife of a
high school principal) lived there as a little girl probably about
1910. Her father was the school district superintendent there and
found his second job was keeping his family away from the rowdies
that included cowboys, ranch hands and miners who came to town on
paydays. One day one of Vera's friends dared her to sneak out of the
house and go to the Birdcage Theater to a talent contest. Vera was
always up to a dare and not only did she go, she sang in the contest.
Not only did she sing, she won. We never did know what happened when
her father read about it the next day in the paper, but the Bird Cage
Theater has always seemed a bit more special than the other buildings
in Tombstone because of that story.
The buildings in Tombstone have been kept true to the style of its
heyday when silver was mined. In some places mines are actually under
the town itself and one or two even have openings in the buildings
under which they existed. In February 1881 Tombstone was officially
incorporated as a city and Virgil Earp, the brother of former Marshal
Wyatt Earp, became the Chief of Police on July 4th. The now famous
Gunfight at the OK Corral took place on October 26th of that same
year, killing Tom McLowery, Frank McLowery and Billy Clanton.
Walk around the town, and take a look at the OK Corral, stop by the
Bird Cage Theater for a saspirilla then on your way out of town, stop
by Boot Hill and wander through the graveyard. Interesting markers
that tell of hard times and harder people. The story of the Chinese
who lived there is better told another time but is a most interesting
study.
The Great Depression, two major fires and flooding would have wiped
out a less strong community but not Tombstone. They just picked up,
rebuilt and kept going. The tourist industry gained strength and Tombstone
has proved once again that it the town too tough to die.
http://www.cityoftombstone.com/
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