The Town Too Tough to Die

We had a late start today due to sleeping in and assorted other reasons. It was a beautiful day and we were ready to see the famous Tombstone. What we didn't know was the complete history about the town and we were about to find out.

We were only a few miles down the road when we ran across another border patrol station. I finally got a picture of some of the equipment used to monitor the cars as they are driving through. I am not sure of ther exact science but they seem to be able to sense what is in your vehicle. We will find out tomorrow when we need to drive through them to reach our next destination.

Today our destination was Tombstone. The town is a National Historic Park, just like Virginia City, NV and Coloma, CA. The town seemed quiet when we first arrived but got busier as the day went by.

Some of the character actors were starting to mingle in the street. The Earp brothers, Doc Holliday and others were getting ready to put on a replay of the famous fight at the OK Corral.

Not being too shy I went up to Doc Holliday to ask for a picture. One of the Earps (I think he was Wyatt) and another townspeople joined in!

These three musicians were great. The one on the left had tambourines strapped to his knees and played "bones" with his hands. He was really quite a character. We loved listening to all their songs.

Of course, we had to go to the OK Corral to see the reenactment of the shootout.

I took lots of pictures but since we were pretty far up the seating stands they weren't as good as I would have liked.

After the show I was able to get the three Earp brothers, Wyatt, Virgil & Morgan, to pose for a picture.

Among the many museum pieces we saw was this picture describing Geronimo's life. There is a lot of history of the Indian Nations that Geronimo and Cochise were part of. It was one of the other pieces of history associated with Tombstone.


This was just part of the stable at the OK Corral and it housed several buckboards, carriages, saddles and other horse related items!

We ate a late lunch at the Longhorn Saloon. It's walls were covered with posters of the western era.

Another historical building in the town was the Bird Cage Theatre. It now houses one of the many museums in the city. Most of it is as originally seen over 100 years ago.

The actual theatre was behind this wall but we didn't want to pay more money to see it! The chandeliers are original and so is the catwalk you see above the lady's head.

We found the courthouse a few blocks away and there happened to be a stagecoach passing by! This courthouse was refurbished by the townspeople.

Inside the courthouse we found this open safe. You can see some of the original brick in the background. Again, there was a charge to see the museum in this building so we declined. It would be nice if you could just pay one price and be able to see all the buildings in the town.

A short distance from town was the Boothill Cemetary. I took a little time to walk through the graveyard to see some of the graves.

A lot of the graves said unknown, but most of them had a marker that said the person was shot, murdered, killed or hung.

Many sites just had the name and date but a few had a little more information like the one of Lester Moore, seen in the background.

This is the group of graves for the McLaury's and Billy Clanton who were killed at the OK Corral.

We had enough history for the day so we headed back to camp. Gary took a short nap while I read some of the brochures that we picked up today. Like I mentioned earlier, there is more history to this town than the one gunfight that everyone knows about!

We will relax this evening and probably play a few more games of cribbage. I actually won 2 out of 3 flast night! That's good for me because I usually get creamed. Wish me luck!