Tombstone - 21st October

We set out earlier today as we planned to go to Tombstone, of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday fame.  It's a couple of hours away so we needed to be on the road in reasonable time.

The countryside on our journey gradually changed from the arid vegetation of the Tucson district to a more scrubby appearance, with fewer cacti and more ground cover, to a rough grassland with scattered shrubs and straggly small trees, suitable for ranching.  Eventually we even saw signs for vines, although there were no extensive vineyards.

Around Sonoita there were several cattle sculptures showing the importance of ranching to the area.

The first port of call at Tombstone was the Boothill Graveyard, a fascinating illustration of what life 

must have been like in the late nineteenth century in this wild mining town.  

The graves were laid out in rows, which have been tidied and spruced up for some years. Some of the "occupants" were unknown, but the names of many of the deceased were labelled, and the story behind their death was documented, sometimes sad (the death of a child from meningitis) and 

sometimes portrayed in an amusing way, though clearly not for the person involved!

In town we parked near the courthouse and saw round, as it is really a museum now. There was a good overall history, about the Native Americans, the silver mining, the rowdy saloons and prostitute houses, as well as the story of Wyatt Earp, his brothers and Doc Holliday and their fight at the O.K. Corral. This was against the cowboy "outlaws", the Clanton brothers, the McLaury brothers and Billy Claiborne.  

We saw a re-enactment of the fight and events leading up to it in town, although none of us was overly impressed.  

One of my favourite notices in town! 

Lunch was taken in the Big Nose Kate Saloon, which is named after the one time lover of Doc Holliday, in which every space is taken up with some memory of the infamous times of Tombstone, 

or reference to it. 

Last visit was to the Tombstone Epitaph Museum, the office of the town's oldest newspaper, set up by John Clum, who reckoned that every tombstone should have an epitaph!