When Ed Schieffelin left the Army to go prospecting 70 miles
southeast of Tucson in what was essentially Apache territory his
friends told him that he would only find his tombstone. Ed must have had
a sense of humor because he found silver and named his claim Tombstone.
The name struck a cord with the prospectors in the area and they changed
the name of their shanty town called Goose Flats to Tombstone.
When the mines in the area finally closed, 37 million dollars had been taken
out of the ground. Today "the town too tough to die"
is still there but it makes its living from the tourist trade.
We went to a reenactment of the famous "Gunfight at the OK Corral" and
were amazed to learn that the fight that has launched movies and has been
talked about for over a 100 years only lasted 30 seconds. In those 30 seconds
a little over thirty shots were fired and three men lay dead; Billy Clanton,
Tom McLaury and Frank McLaury. Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne who were
unarmed fled to safety when the shooting began, while Virgil Earp, Morgan
Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Only Wyatt Earp walked away unscathed.
The area itself also seemed small about 40 sq. feet and the men must have
been fairly close to each other. It sort of reminded me of the Today Show
studio which looked so large with Dave Garoway on black and white TV and
yet was so small "in person".
We visited the Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park in town.
The jail was at the rear under the courtroom with a door to the courtyard
beyond. (the gallows is a replica)
This was not the "black maria" that carried the dead to "boothill"
cemetery but it was just outside the gate at a notions and sundries store
selling tourist memorabilia and I thought it cute.
The graveyard in historic Tombstone was established in 1879 and
closed in 1884 because it was full, although there were some burials after
that.
The Cemetery, the first to be called boothill is the final resting places
of many infamous people like the Canton's and Mclowry's as well as
honest law abiding citizens and a few innocent children.
There must be something in the air because Ed Schieffelin sense
of humor seems catching as some of the grave marker's show.
One reads "Here lies Lester Moore, Four slugs from a .44, No
Les, no more." ("Moore was a Wells Fargo agent at Naco and had a dispute
with a man over a package. Both died...{Information from an old
resident}" Others are shown in the pictures that follow.
and 
Sometime after it was closed in 1884 the Boothill cemetery became
know as "The Old Cemetery" and it lay neglected for many years.
Debris piled up and nature reclaimed parts of it. In the 1940's concerned
citizens cleaned up the debris pushed nature back and replaced many of the
wooden crosses with metal ones.
This sign leads the way to the Jewish Cemetery
and Memorial
Home | The Big Trip
