Location: Tombstone, Arizona
Summary: A fun and memorable visit to Boothill Graveyard, the OK Corral and Big Nose Kate’s Saloon, with plenty of Old West history, humour and a surprise encounter with a Spurs fan.
While in Tombstone, Arizona, I visited Boothill Graveyard and the OK Corral. Walking around Boothill was fascinating, and many of the gravestones had surprisingly funny engravings on them. The OK Corral itself was much smaller than I expected, and the mechanical show was so bad it was actually entertaining. Unfortunately, we were not there long enough to see any of the live shows performed in the streets.
Photos from the Boothill Cemetery.
My Uncle Dave and I stopped in at Big Nose Kate’s Saloon, where I was immediately confronted at the door by a dirty, low-down Tottenham Hotspur fan who objected to my Arsenal shirt. He had originally lived in Tottenham before moving to Tombstone and now worked in the saloon. And yes, he really was wearing spurs on his boots. After the banter, we enjoyed a lovely meal and a beer before playing a game of pool on the old table inside the saloon.
History
Tombstone is a historic western city in Cochise County, Arizona. It was founded in 1879 by Ed Schieffelin and became one of the last major frontier boomtowns of the American Old West. Between 1877 and 1890, the mines produced between $40 and $85 million in silver bullion, making it Arizona’s most productive silver district. The population grew rapidly from around 100 people to nearly 14,000 in less than seven years. Today, Tombstone is best known as the site of the Gunfight at the OK Corral and relies heavily on tourism.
The town was built on a mesa above the Tough Nut Mine. Within two years, Tombstone had a bowling alley, four churches, an ice house, a school, two banks, three newspapers and an ice cream parlour. It also had 110 saloons, 14 gambling halls and numerous dance halls and brothels. The more refined residents attended operas at Schieffelin Hall, while miners and cowboys preferred the Bird Cage Theatre, once described as the wildest and wickedest night spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast.
Tensions simmered beneath the surface. Many townspeople and mining investors were Republicans from the Northern states, while many ranchers were Confederate sympathisers and Democrats. Tombstone’s proximity to the Mexican border made it a prime market for cattle stolen from Sonora by a loosely organised group known as The Cowboys. The Earp brothers, Virgil, Wyatt, Morgan and Warren, arrived between 1879 and 1880 and soon clashed with Ike and Billy Clanton, Frank and Tom McLaury and other Cowboys. Months of threats and hostility eventually led to the confrontation that became the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral. The actual shootout took place on Fremont Street, a short distance from the corral itself.
In the mid-1880s, the mines reached the water table, and expensive pumps were installed. A fire in 1886 destroyed the Grand Central hoist and pumping plant, and it was no longer profitable to rebuild. Tombstone nearly became a ghost town, saved only because it remained the Cochise County seat until 1929. The population dropped to 646 in 1910 but had risen to 1,380 by 2010.
OK Corral
The OK Corral was originally a livery and horse corral operating from 1879 to about 1888. Despite its association with the famous gunfight, the shootout actually took place in a narrow lot six doors west of the corral’s rear entrance, between Harwood’s home and C. S. Fly’s boarding house and photography studio. The 1957 film Gunfight at the OK Corral cemented the idea that the fight happened inside the corral, and the location has been marketed that way ever since. Today, visitors can pay to watch a reenactment as part of the Tombstone Historic District.
Fun Fact
The “OK” in OK Corral did not originally mean “okay”. It came from a popular 1800s abbreviation: “O.K.” was short for “Oll Korrect”, a joking misspelling of “All Correct”. It later became widely known through the “Old Kinderhook” political slogan used by supporters of President Martin Van Buren. By the time Tombstone was founded, “O.K.” simply meant reliable or satisfactory, which is why the corral was named the OK Corral.
Boothill Graveyard
Boothill Graveyard, originally called Boothill Cemetery, was founded in 1878. After a new cemetery was built, Boothill stopped accepting most burials around 1883. It fell into disrepair until the 1940s, when restoration efforts began. Today it is one of Tombstone’s most visited attractions, known for its history and its famously blunt and humorous epitaphs.
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