23/12/12 – The Town Too Tough To Die

Well many thought it would never happen, but Peter eventually convinced me to call in to see Tombstone – ‘The Town That Was Too Tough To Die’. And just so you know, the deal was not sealed with the purchase of a Navaho silver and purple spiny oyster shell (from the Gulf of Cortez) bracelet and matching earrings by Victor Trajillo. I thoroughly enjoyed the visit and took a genuine interest in the significant history to be learned there.

We stepped out of our ‘Doc Holiday’ room at the Larian Hotel to greet a 75 degree day and a perfect start to the tour with breakfast at the ‘Chuck Wagon’ Restaurant. Today’s special was bacon and eggs with blueberry pancakes and maple syrup, so no need to read the menu. We got to sit at the counter and the waitress served me coffee with complimentary refills – something I have always wanted to do in the USA!! 

We took a stage coach tour around the town to discover that most of the buildings are original since the town, with the water table flooding of the silver mines ($5 million in the 1870s from the ‘Good Enough’ mine alone) had become almost a ghost town overnight when everyone packed up and left for the unflooded mines in the nearby town of Bisbee.

But as the figures quoted in the preceding paragraph indicate the ‘silver rush’ in Tombstone was something to behold, while it lasted, and as is so often the case when there is a fortune at stake, greed soon turned to violence and the shootout at the OK Corral between ‘Doc’ Holliday and Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil Earp on the one hand and the Clanton’s on the other was a classic example of such lawlessness. It has been the focus of many westerns over time. Interestingly the same events probably unfolded in Kalgoorlie at about the same time in history but seemed to have been sorted without the need to use a six shooter to fill the grave yard!

Next stop Yuma on the banks of the Colorado River on the border between Arizona and California.