Tombstone and Boot Hill

As our parting shot from St David we took a trip to old Tombstone and Boot Hill.  Tombstone is the town where the shootout at the OK Corral occurred in 1881 when the Clantons and the Earps were competing for control of the town.

The Clanton gang always wore red.  These two are
obviously Clanton cohorts.

The main street is blocked off from traffic but you can still drive and park along the side streets.  The town is totally commercialized with several place offering exhibitions of the gun fights that occurred all too often in old Tombstone.  There are more museums than you can count and they charge from $3-$10 per person.  The OK Corral where the gun fight that made the town famous occurred charges $10 but it includes access to the OK Corral, the museum next door and a copy of the Tombstone newspaper that recorded the events of that day.

The Butterfield Stage runs in town if you want to take a ride in a stage coach.  Buy your ticket at the Butterfield Stage ticket  office...

 ...and hop aboard for a short ride around town.

There are lots of little shops selling souvenirs for you to take home.

The Good Enough Mine offers mine tours,

and the Historic Cochise County Courthouse is also a museum.

My favorite activity, however, was the visit to the Boot Hill Cemetery on the edge of town.  More than any of the re-enactments in old Tombstone, a visit to Boot Hill is a lesson in the character and difficulties of living in the old west.  Among the citizens buried here are judges and marshals, outlaws, Indians, and Chinese.  The victims of crime and the criminals are buried near one another.  Suicides, murders and illnesses removed Tombstones residents from the town and place them there in Boot Hill.  A sampling of the residents gives testimony to the nature of life here in the 1880s.

The victims of the OK Corral shootout are all buried together.

John Heath, a man who planned a robbery in the nearby town of Bisbee, was hauled out of the jail and hanged from a telegraph pole just west of the courthouse.  His gang was hanged together 17 days later on a single gallows after having been convicted of killing several people during the robbery.  Justice was swift in Tombstone. 

For a complete picture of the Boot Hill cemetery go to the Boot Hill Graveyard website.  There you will find a list of the residents of Boot HIll and how they died.  People like Geo. Johnson, hanged by mistake after he innocently bought a stolen horse and suffered the consequences.

"Here lies George Johnson, 

Hanged by mistake, 1882.

He was right, 

we was wrong, 

but we strung him up 

and now he's gone."

Or Lester Moore

Lester Moore

"Here lies Lester Moore,

Four slugs from a .44,

No Les, no more."

Moore was a Wells Fargo agent at Naco and had a dispute with a man over a package.

Both died. 

or Johnnie Wilson

"Johnnie Wilson Shot by King"

Two gunmen's discussion of the fastest way to draw, ended here.

One of the surprises in the cemetery is a the Jewish Graveyard and Memorial.  There are no marked graves here but a very nice memorial has been erected "Dedicated to the Jewish Pioneers and Their Indian Friends".

The Jewish Memorial

A most interesting place to visit is Boot Hill Cemetery.  You can almost feel the tension of the "town too tough to die."

         -Kent

Scouting Tombstone and Shooting

We decided to take a short trip to Tombstone and scout for our trip there next week.  We drove 12 of the 13ish miles from St David and I turned onto Arizona Highway 82 on a tip from a fellow traveler.  Very shortly down the road we came to the Tombstone Livery and pulled in.  Tombstone Livery is a campground and a shooting range.  I stopped and talked to one of the fellows there and found out it is for "cowboy shooters" only.  Now while it might sound like you are using your range hands for target practice, cowboy shooting is really a style of shooting and in many instances cowboy shooters adopt an entire wild west persona with a western name and outfit and of course six guns and rifles only, with maybe a derringer or two thrown in for excitement.

Nationwide the cowboy shooting craze has grown greatly and there are cowboy shooting clubs almost anywhere you go.  Typically they have meetings and shooting contest and competitions with other clubs. It is a subculture all it own and very exciting and interesting to those hooked on old west history and culture. Interested in finding more info?  Try http://www.cascity.com/ or google cowboy action shooting or ask a gun club or store near you.

There are hours in addition to the weekend hours shown.
Go to the website for a full schedule.

Well, since I am not a "cowboy shooter" I was politely asked to mosey on, which we did after the kind cowboy told where I could find a regular shooting range.  We drove another 13 miles south of Tombstone to Arizona Highway 90, turned west and found the Sierra Vista Shooting Range.  After driving the 1.25 miles of hard trail (seriously washboarded dirt road), we came to the range.  Two volunteers were there to run the range and were very helpful.  They even opened the range 15 minutes early for me.  I spent nearly two hours happily sending bullets downrange and even met a guy who let me shoot his .50cal black powder rifle.  Not as much kick as I thought but what a hoot!

We headed back and stopped to take a picture of the entrance to Boot Hill Cemetery.  What else is in there with the cemetery?  Well I'm not sure, but I really can't wait to go there next week and find out.








On the way back we passed through a Border Patrol check point.  Does anyone else wonder what use these are since the people who are trying to avoid being caught are well aware of where these checkpoints are.  Seems to me there should be a better way.
          -Kent