Tombstone, Arizona
Tombstone Tombstone, Arizona Official seal of Tombstone Location in Cochise County and the state of Arizona Location in Cochise County and the state of Arizona Tombstone is a historic town/city in Cochise County, Arizona, United States, established in 1879, by Ed Schieffelin in what was then Pima County, Arizona Territory.
The town prospered from about 1877 to 1890, amid which time the town's mines produced US$40 to $85 million in silver bullion, the biggest productive silver precinct in Arizona.
Within two years of its founding, although far distant from any other urbane area, Tombstone boasted a bowling alley, four churches, an ice home, a school, two banks, three newspapers, and an ice cream parlor, alongside 110 saloons, 14 gambling halls, and various dance halls and brothels.
The gentlemen and ladies of Tombstone attended operas presented by visiting acting troupes at the Schieffelin Hall opera home, while the miners and cowboys saw shows at the Bird Cage Theatre, "the wildest, wickedest evening spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast".
The town/city nearly became a ghost town, saved only because it was the Cochise County seat until 1929.
The city's populace dwindled to a low of 646 in 1910, but interval to 1,380 by 2010. Tombstone has incessantly been noted on lists of unusual place names. Tombstone in 1881 by C.
Ed Schieffelin in Tombstone in 1880 When friend and fellow Army Scout Al Sieber learned what Schieffelin was up to, he is quoted as telling him, "The only modern you will find out there will be your own tombstone". Another account reported Schieffelin's friends told him, "Better take your coffin with you; you will find your tombstone there, and nothing else." Safford offered financial backing for a share of the quarrying claim, and Schieffelin, his brother Al, and their partner Richard Gird formed the Tombstone Mining and Milling Company and assembled a stamping mill.
Allis rather than surveying the new town's site, which was revealed on March 5, 1879, to an eager public. The tents and shacks near the Lucky Cuss were moved to the new town site on Goose Flats, a mesa above the Toughnut at 4,539 feet (1,383 m) above sea level and large enough to hold a burgeoning town.
When Cochise County was formed from the easterly portion of Pima County on February 1, 1881, Tombstone became the new county seat.
In early March 1880, the Schieffelins' Tombstone Mining and Milling Company which owned the Tough Nut Mine, among others, was sold to investors from Philadelphia. Two months later, it was reported that the Tough Nut Mine was working a vein of silver ore 90 feet (27 m) athwart that assayed at $170 per ton, with some ore assaying at $22,000 a ton. On September 9, 1880, the richly appointed Grand Hotel was opened, adorned with fine petroleum paintings, thick Brussels carpets, toilet stands, elegant chandeliers, silk-covered furniture, walnut furniture, and a kitchen with hot and cold running water. At the height of the silver quarrying boom, when the populace was about 10,000, the town/city was host to Kelly's Wine House, featuring 26 varieties of wine imported from Europe, a beer imported from Colorado titled "Coors", cigars, a bowling alley, and many other amenities common to large cities.
Panorama of Tombstone in 1909 from Fremont and Second Streets.
Panorama of Tombstone in 1909 from the upper floor of the Cochise County courthouse on 3rd and Tough Nut St.
Further information: Cochise County in the Old West and Cochise County Cowboys Tombstone sheriff and constituents, an illustration from Mexico, California and Arizona; Being a New and Revised Edition of Old Mexico and Her Lost Provinces Fire insurance map of Tombstone in 1888 The mine and company owners, miners, townspeople and town/city lawmen including the Earps were largely Republicans from the Northern states.
In the early 1880s, smuggling and theft of cattle, alcohol, and tobacco athwart the U.S./Mexico border about 30 miles (48 km) from Tombstone were common.
On the evening of March 15, 1881, three Cowboys attempted to rob a Kinnear & Company stagecoach carrying US$26,000 in silver bullion (about $645,000 in today's dollars) en route from Tombstone to Benson, Arizona, the nearest barns freight terminal.:180 Near Drew's Station, just outside Contention City, the prominent and well-known driver Eli "Budd" Philpot and a passenger titled Peter Roerig riding in the rear dickey seat were both shot and killed.
Marshal Sheriff Virgil Earp and his temporary deputies and brothers Wyatt Earp and Morgan Earp pursued the Cowboys suspected of the murders.
Three months later on the evening of December 28, 1881, Virgil Earp was ambushed and seriously wounded on the streets of Tombstone by hidden assailants shooting from the second story of an unfinished building.
Main article: Boothill Graveyard (Tombstone, Arizona) Of the number of pioneer Boot Hill cemeteries in the Old West, so titled because most of those buried in them had "died with their boots on", Boothill in Tombstone is one of the best-known. Tombstone boomed, but founder Ed Schieffelin was more interested in prospecting than owning a mine.
There were a several hundred quarrying claims near Tombstone, although the most productive were immediately south of town.
Due to the lack of readily available water near town, mills were assembled along the San Pedro River about 9 miles (14 km) away, dominant to the establishment of a several small foundry towns, including Charleston, Contention City, and Fairbank. Schieffelin left Tombstone to find more ore and when he returned four months later, Gird had lined up buyers for their interest in the Contention claim, which they sold for $10,000.
There are widely varying estimates of the value of gold and silver mined amid the course of Tombstone's history.
The Tombstone mines produced 32 million troy ounces (1,000 metric tons) of silver, more than any other quarrying precinct in Arizona. In 1883, writer Patrick Hamilton estimated that amid the first four years of activeness the mines produced about USD $25,000,000 (approximately $643 million today).
As a result, lawyers began to settle in Tombstone and became even wealthier than the miners and those who financed the mining. In addition, because many of the lawsuits required expert analysis of the underground, many geologists and engineers found employment in Tombstone and settled there.
In the end, a thorough mapping of the region was instead of by experts which resulted in maps documenting Tombstone's quarrying claims better than any other quarrying precinct of the West. Mining was an easy task at Tombstone in the early days, ore being rich and close to the surface.
One man could pull out ore equal to what three men produced elsewhere. Some inhabitants of Tombstone became quite wealthy and spent considerable cash amid its boom years.
Tombstone's first newspaper, the Nugget, was established in the fall of 1879.
The Tombstone Epitaph was established on May 1, 1880.
Many people of Tombstone dressed well, and up-to-date fashion could be seen in this burgeoning mining town. Visitors expressed their amazement at the character and range of products that were readily available in the area.
When the barns was not assembled into Tombstone as had been planned, the increasingly sophisticated town/city of Tombstone remained mostly isolated, deep in a Federal territory that was largely an unpopulated desert and wilderness.
Tombstone and its encircling countryside also became known as one of the deadliest regions in the West.
No sooner was a pipeline instead of than Tombstone's silver mines hit water. Due to poor building practices and poor fire protection common to boomtown construction, Tombstone was hit by two primary fires.
By mid-1881 there were fancy restaurants, Vogan's Bowling Alley, four churches Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Methodist an ice home, a school, the Schieffelin Hall opera home, two banks, three newspapers, and an ice cream parlor, alongside 110 saloons, 14 gambling halls, a several Chinese restaurants, French, two Italian, various Mexican, a several upscale "Continental" establishments, and many "home cooking" hot spots including Nellie Cashman's famous Rush House and various brothels all situated among and on top of a number of dirty, hardscrabble mines. The Arizona Telephone Company began installing poles and lines for the city's first telephone service on March 15, 1881. The approximately 6,000 men working in Tombstone generated more than $168,000 a week (approximately $4,318,200 today) in income. The mostly young, single, male populace spent their hard-earned cash on Allen Street, the primary commercial center, open 24 hours a day.
In 1882, The New York Times reported that "the Bird Cage Theatre is the wildest, wickedest evening spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast." The Bird Cage remained open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year until it closed its doors in 1889. Respectable women stayed on the north side of Allen Street.
By late 1881 Tombstone had more than 7,000 people, excluding all Chinese, Mexicans, women and kids residents.
At the height of the town's boom, the official populace reached about 10,000, with a several thousand more uncounted. In 1882, the Cochise County Courthouse was assembled at a cost of around $45,000. It finished the Grand Hotel and the Tivoli Saloon before it jumped Fremont Street, destroying more than 100 businesses and most of the company district.
Individuals who had thought about leaving Tombstone when the mine flooding started now took action.
Tombstone was saved from becoming a ghost town partly because it remained the Cochise County seat until 1929, when county inhabitants voted to move county offices to close-by Bisbee.
The classic Cochise County Courthouse and adjoining gallows yard in Tombstone are preserved as a exhibition.
Currently, tourism and memorabilia are the chief commercial enterprises; a July 2005 CNN article notes that Tombstone receives approximately 450,000 tourist visitors each year.
In contrast to its heyday, when it featured saloons open 24 hours and various homes of prostitution, Tombstone is now a staid improve with several businesses open late.
Tombstone and encircling areas have a range of lodging options, restaurants, and attractions.
The town is positioned near other historic sites of interest, including Bisbee and the San Pedro Riparian area. Tombstone is a short drive away from Sierra Vista, which is considered the shopping core of Cochise County. East Allen Street is the center of Tombstone's tourist attractions, featuring three blocks of shaded boardwalks lined t shops, saloons, and eateries.
Allen Street's historic precinct is closed to motor traffic from 3rd Street, the locale of the town/city park and OK Corral, to 6th Street, where the Bird Cage Theatre is located.
The Tombstone Western Film Festival was held there from 2001-2005.
Helldorado Days is Tombstone's earliest festival and jubilates the community's wild days of the 1880s.
Started in 1929 (coincidentally the year Wyatt Earp died), the festival is held on the third weekend of every October, near the anniversary date of the Gunfight at the O.K.
Tombstone's Main Event: A Tragedy at the O.K.
According to Guinness, the world's biggest rosebush was planted in Tombstone in 1885 and still flourishes in the city's sunny climate.
Today are descendants of the Tombstone rose. The Tombstone Historic District is a National Historic Landmark District.
The town's focus on tourism has threatened the town's designation as a National Historic Landmark District, a designation it earned in 1961 as "one of the best preserved specimens of the rugged frontier town of the 1870s and '80s".
Cochise County Courthouse in Tombstone, Arizona, before it was restored.
Building incompatible additions to existing historic structures and new incompatible buildings inside the historic precinct Installing hitching rails and Spanish tile-covered store porches when such architectural features never existed inside Tombstone Historical buildings include Schieffelin Hall, the opera home assembled by Al Schieffelin in 1881, and the Cochise County Courthouse.
The Tombstone Restoration Commission acquired the courthouse and advanced it as a historical exhibition that opened in 1959.
It features exhibits and thousands of artifacts documenting Tombstone's past. The Tombstone District positioned at 31 42 57 N 110 3 53 W (31.715940, -110.064827) sits up on a mesa (elevation 4,539 feet (1,383 m)) in the San Pedro River valley between the Huachuca Mountains and Whetstone Mountains to the west, and the Mules and the Dragoon Mountains to the east.
The silver-bearing Tombstone Hills around the town/city are caused by a small-town upheaval of porphyry through a limestone capping. Structural faulting occurs throughout the precinct especially immediately south of Tombstone, where the strata are closely folded. Tombstone District ores have been produced geologically in three or more ways.
Tombstone has a typical Arizona semi-arid climate (Koppen BSk/BSh) with three basic seasons.
Winter, from October to March, features mild to warm days and chilly evenings, with minima falling to under 32 F or 0 C on 28.4 evenings, although snow flurry is almost unknown, with the median being zero and the heaviest monthly fall 14.0 inches or 0.36 metres in January 1916, of which 12.0 inches (0.30 m) fell on January 16.
The coldest temperature record in Tombstone has been 3 F or 16.1 C on December 8, 1978.
Climate data for Tombstone, Arizona (1971-2000; extremes 1893-2001) Tombstone Unified School District serves Tombstone.
The precinct schools in Tombstone are Walter J.
Meyer Elementary School and Tombstone High School. Residents of the Tombstone school precinct are inside the Cochise Technology District. See also: List of historic properties in Tombstone, Arizona Several properties in Tombstone have been encompassed in the National Register of Historic Places. The following are images of some of these properties: Tombstone's tradition has made the town prominent in film, music, and television.
Tombstone has lent its name to many Western movies over the years, including but not limited to Frontier Marshal (1939), Sheriff of Tombstone (1941), My Darling Clementine (1946), Gunfight at the O.K.
Bob Dylan wrote a song titled "Tombstone Blues" that appears on the album Highway 61 Revisited.
The Brazilian countrycore quartet Matanza presented a song titled "Tombstone City".
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, originally set in Kansas and later in Tombstone, featured Hugh O'Brian as Wyatt Earp from 1955 to 1961.
The Doctor Who serial The Gunfighters is set in Tombstone.
From 1957 to 1960, Tombstone was featured in the ABC and later syndicated Western tv series Tombstone Territory starring Pat Conway as Sheriff Clay Hollister and Richard Eastham as Harris Claibourne, editor of The Tombstone Epitaph newspaper.
Grace Lee Whitney played Nellie Cashman, then a restaurateur in Tombstone, in "The Angel of Tombstone", a 1969 episode of Death Valley Days.
In the story line, Cashman and a several men travel from Tombstone to Baja California in search of gold found by a Mexican prospector.
On October 11, 2006, Tombstone was featured in episode #301 of the Syfy series Ghost Hunters.
On October 13, 2009, Discovery Channel aired a Tombstone episode of Ghost Lab in which Everyday Paranormal investigated the Birdcage Theater, the Crystal Palace, and Boothill cemetery, as well as looked in a silver mine for a possible origin of energy to fuel the large amount of paranormal activeness in the city.
On November 16, 2011, Sy - Fy featured a landmark in Tombstone on the series Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files, in which the team investigated the Bird Cage Theatre, apparently haunted by a coffin-shaped apparition.
"Population Estimates".
"Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (G001): Tombstone city, Arizona".
"Silver in the Tombstone Hills".
G h "National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form" (PDF).
"Tombstone History - The Grand Hotel".
"The O.K.
"Wyatt Earp's Vendetta Posse".
"Tombstone's Boot Hill".
"Mine Tales: Rich Tombstone mines were a lure for prospectors".
Walter Noble Burns (September 1, 1999).
Tombstone: An Iliad of the Southwest.
"Tombstone Mining".
B., (1972) Tombstone.
Tombstone, Arizona, Too Tough To Die The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of a Silver Camp; 1878-1990.
N., (1951) Tombstone.
"Tombstone, Arizona".
"Tombstone: Fighting frontier fires".
"Tombstone, Arizona Boothill".
"The History of The Tombstone Epitaph Newspaper".
WGBH American Experience: Wyatt Earp, Complete Program Transcript.
"Contention City and Its Mills".
"Tombstone Memories by Harry H.
Tombstone Epitaph.
"Reverend Endicott Peabody: Tombstone's Quiet Hero".
"Tombstone's Riches".
"O.K.
Corral Famous Gunfight Site, Tombstone AZ".
Arizona: A State Guide.
"Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park".
"Tombstone, Cochise County".
"Tombstone District, Tombstone Hills, Cochise Co., Arizona, USA".
Ransome, F.L.
National Weather Service Tucson; NOW Data "TOMBSTONE, AZ" (PDF).
"Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2015".
"Annual Estimates of the Population for All Incorporated Places in Arizona" (CSV).
Home "Walter J.
"Tombstone High School".
Governing Board "Cochise Technology District" Check |url= value (help).
"National Register of Historical Places - ARIZONA (AZ), Maricopa County".
"The Angel of Tombstone on Death Valley Days".
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tombstone, Arizona.
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Tombstone.
City of Tombstone official website Tombstone Arizona Information and Business Directory Tombstone Chamber of Commerce A tombstone in Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone Municipalities and communities of Cochise County, Arizona, United States American folklore - American Old West - Cities in Arizona - Boot Hill cemeteries - Cities in Cochise County, Arizona - Cochise County conflict - Populated places established in 1879 - 1879 establishments in Arizona Territory - Tombstone, Arizona - Geological type localities
|