Within the Apache Nation, there were five tribes or bands. The band that lived in this exact area was called the Chiricahua. Now the Chiricahua were special, even amongst the Apache. They were known as wise medicine and brave warriors. They were also the last of the great tribes to defy the United States government as it imposed the Reservation System. Nearly 200 years ago a young United States fo
ught a war with Mexico, mostly over territory and in victory acquired a large land mass which now makes up the modern states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Directly after that floods of American settlers came into this area, seeking land and fortune and opportunity. This caused a conflict with the Chiricahua…and then a full blown war. Whenever you have a war you need bases of operation so in 1877 the United States Army opened up Fort Huachuca, 23 miles south of what would later become Tombstone. The Army placed that fort there as a front during the Apache Indian Wars and to secure the Mexican border which is 13 miles south of there. However it also became a jumping off point for a lot of the settlers and fortune seekers coming into this area. One of those was a prospector named Ed Schieffelin. So Ed Schieffelin was at the Fort, looking at a map and making plans to come up into the area we now call Tombstone…an area which had not yet been chartered. So those Army scouts from the Fort were concerned for him, after all this was the home of Geronimo and his band of Chiricahua were running rampant at that point. So those Army scouts warned Mr. Schieffelin straight up! They said: “if you do indeed go up there looking for your minerals, the only kind of rock or stone you’re likely to find…will be your own tombstone”! Well luckily for us, Mr. Schieffelin was a stubborn man and did not heed those Army scout warnings and made several excursions up into this area looking for his minerals. Then one day by luck or the grace of God or whatever you want to call it…he looked out on the desert and laying right onto of the ground was a silver vein…eight inches wide by 12 feet long! It was customary in those days to name your claim so he thought it would be funny to call it ‘Tombstone’ because of those Army scout warnings. So the town grew up around the silver, but when this town was first created it was not called Tombstone…that was just the silver claim. The original name of this town was Goose Flats. Thankfully that name didn’t stick around too long, in 1877 the miners got together and incorporated the town and got talking about it and they said: “That’s a stupid name” so they decided to rename it Tombstone after Mr. Schieffellin and his silver! I’m sure glad they did too…because I can’t imagine Val Kilmer and Kurt Russell making a movie called “Goose Flats”! Tombstone by 1880 became a boom town due to the silver and estimates run as high as 20 thousand people may have lived here at that time. But truth be told we don’t know how many people lived here because they thought differently back then….to be part of the census you had to be a Caucasian male and a land owner. Therefore there may have been even more than 20 thousand people here…we just don’t know for sure. But what we do know is that Tombstone got VERY big! In fact at one point, Tombstone was the biggest city between St. Louis and San Francisco! Now to give you an idea of just how big Tombstone became, Allen Street, the historical street here in Tombstone…once had 106 saloons on it!! As far as Tombstone’s Red Light District, that too was big business! At one point Tombstone had 3,400 registered ladies of the night! By registered I mean that to be a lady of the night here one had to go to City Hall, pay a fee and get a license. Yea…Tombstone was making money off those shady ladies back then! Now Tombstone first & foremost was a mining camp…made possible due to the silver that lies in the ground. Today Tombstone is Arizona’s second largest tourist attraction…second only the Grand Canyon. But Tombstone is still on the map today thanks to bloodshed. Every tourist who comes to Tombstone comes thanks to bloodshed. So to give you an idea of the bloodshed that occurred here we use the years 1879-1883 and if you compare that era to modern day New York or Los Angeles, per capita…we did indeed have a higher murder rate. I often tell people that if I could get in a time machine and come back to 1880s Tombstone, I would not come back as an outlaw or a law man…there’s simply no money in that. Truth be told, if I could come back…I’d come back as the undertaker…now that guy was making some money! In fact, Tombstone supported three full time undertakers and that was just unheard of…most cities only had one and he was usually a part-timer. But of all the shootings & killings & gunfights that occurred here in Tombstone back in the wild days…the most famous was the gunfight at the O.K. Now that gunfight didn’t actually take place in the corral, but in a vacant lot behind it and then spilled off onto Fremont Street, which is now the highway coming into Tombstone. Over 30 shots were fired in less than a minute on 26 October, 1881…at 2:pm in the afternoon. Three men were killed, or as the newspaper said so poetically the next morning, they were: “hurled into eternity”. The brothers, Tom & Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton…DEAD!!! On the Earp’s side three men were wounded. Tombstone’s City Marshal Virgil Earp was brought down to one knee as a bullet went into his calf muscle. His younger brother, 31 year old Morgan Earp took one right in the shoulder blade. Then there was John Henry Holliday, better known as Doc Holliday. Now the movies don’t show this, but he actually received a bullet in that gunfight. It hit him in the hip area and bounced off his leather gun belt. It hurt him so bad he honestly thought he was gut-shot. So the only man who stood in that famous Tombstone gunfight and did not receive a bullet therefore sealing his fate as the most legendary lawman in Western History was fellow called Wyatt Earp. Wyatt Earp would live until one month shy of his 81st birthday dying in 1929 in Los Angeles, California of natural causes.
