For Christianna : Tombstone, AT

[B00Mer]

Tombstone, AT

Allen Street

The Bird Cage

The Court House

City Hall, Tombstone, AT

City Park, Tombstone, AT

The Gun Fight @ OK Corral, Tombstone, AT

Old Man Clanton's Grave, Boot Hill, Tombstone, AT

Frank & Tom McLaury and Billy Clanton's Graves

Cochise Stronghold, Tombstone

Boot Hill, Tombstone, AT

Christianna, I parked up where the road T's out.. there was deer all over the place.. unbelievable

Border Check point just north of the town, it wasn't truck friendly.. was inches from the camera's on the right and the Border agents toes and dog on my left...

 

[EagleSmack]

Tombstone was a great place to visit. During our tour the historian explained to us that although Tombstone looks like a desolate town at the peak it was the Las Vegas of the West. There was so much money flowing into and out of Tombstone. They had the best restaurants and hotels. Everyone flocked to this place to make it rich.

Even the Bird Cage Theater (which if you visit it today looks so old and beaten down) was the hot spot of the West. The best acts and entertainers at the time came to visit.

 

[petros]

I'd like to shake the hand of the blacksmith that made that cladding. Nice stuff.

 

[EagleSmack]

I'd like to shake the hand of the blacksmith that made that cladding. Nice stuff.

I was there... believe me... nothing more than you could pick up at your local fence place. Stamped metal.

Tombstone is really an interesting place. You have to go WAY out of your way to get there. The only reason why it was there at all was because of the Silver mines. Once the silver mines started to flood the town dried up and the only thing that kept the interest was the Gunfight at the OK Corral. It is not a booming tourist spot.

Petros... as a geologist... you should go. Great museum on silver mining of that age.

 

[petros]

I've been there too. Neat place.

PS I buy my cladding from Hutterites, 95 cents a linear foot.

 

[Christianna]

When we were there the gazebo shown in the picture wasn't there, neither was the saloon with the Courthouse sign. It appears a block on Allen st is blocked from traffic, and they obviously have tidied up the Bird cage, the place was left as is for many years and the place was falling to rags and dust when we were there. However I enjoyed seeing the pictures, Most of it is as I remember it. In recent pictures it looked as if the street was dirt, but I have to assume that was done for some movie or TV show. Since your pictures show it paved as it was then. Thanks for the pictures.

 

[EagleSmack]

I was there two years ago... inside the Birdcage doesn't look so hot. You cannot even walk upstairs past the booths because of safety issues. The wooden floor is so warped. It could use some serious money and preservation IMO.

 

[Christianna]

When we were there the Birdcage was advertized as in "original condition", it was if the original condition was rags and dust. A talk I had attended the owner talked about how they laid out a poker hand every day and unseen hands changed the hand every night. The town was full of ghost stories. However the one place I never heard about ghosts was the Corral. Later I saw a program and you'd be amazed by the number of ghosts it supposedly had. I knew the woman who was talking about the corral's ghosts and all I can say about that is that some people love the limelight and would do anything to be on TV. However hardened reporters would laugh going into the basement at Big Nosed Kates Saloon and then beat a hasty retreat from that basement. Our son was once in the saloon helping a friend move some stuff down. I asked him about the experience and he said there were only 2 of them there but the basement felt very crowded. He said he doesn't believe in ghosts, however he did have some interesting experiences in other places in Tombstone, that he claimed were just left over energy.

 

[EagleSmack]

When we were there the Birdcage was advertized as in "original condition", it was if the original condition was rags and dust. A talk I had attended the owner talked about how they laid out a poker hand every day and unseen hands changed the hand every night. The town was full of ghost stories. However the one place I never heard about ghosts was the Corral. Later I saw a program and you'd be amazed by the number of ghosts it supposedly had. I knew the woman who was talking about the corral's ghosts and all I can say about that is that some people love the limelight and would do anything to be on TV. However hardened reporters would laugh going into the basement at Big Nosed Kates Saloon and then beat a hasty retreat from that basement. Our son was once in the saloon helping a friend move some stuff down. I asked him about the experience and he said there were only 2 of them there but the basement felt very crowded. He said he doesn't believe in ghosts, however he did have some interesting experiences in other places in Tombstone, that he claimed were just left over energy.

Does your son live there?!

Big Nose Kates... that's where we decided to toss back a few on our one night in town. I got a pint glass from there.

The Bird Cage... it is a spooky place. Just so old and dusty. Full of relics from the past. It's like a 1850s garage sale... with nothing for sale. Just a mix of old stuff on display. It was so quiet in there. Definitely had a unique atmosphere. The whole town did.

I didn't see or hear any ghosts though.

 

[Christianna]

We lived there for about 6 years in the 80's. I never saw any ghosts there either. However people I knew and knew weren't crazy believed something was there. I remember being in one of the museums there (I think it later closed) and I was way in one of the back rooms,in fact the doll room, a tourist came into the room and asked me if there were ghosts in the building. I said the sign at the front entrance claimed there were and why. She said she just had a cold chill and all the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

Friends of ours owned the Aztec House on Fremont st. (boomer that was the name I couldn't remember) Back in silvers heyday it was a mining equipment sales room and a 'gentlemans' boarding house. Keep in mind that a man watched the gunfight from a side window as it occurred more in the street than as depicted today. Anyway they told us that a young woman had been stabbed to death by one of the roomers back then. I never said anything about it to our son but one day he asked me about the place. I asked what he wanted to know,and he said he had been going to see the owners went through the room to knock on the residence door when he got an "evil" feeling and out of the corner of his eye he saw a woman being stabbed. For starters I had never heard him use the word evil before in his 20 some years, and I had not told him about the stabbing. Yet he didn't believe in ghosts just the energy they left behind. He had other experiences there that weren't so dramatic.

Then one of my favorite stories from Tombstone. At that time Big Nosed Kates saloon was owned by Dusty Escapule. It had been a quieter Helldorado days that year than normal. However during the Helldorado days weekend he got a phone call from a friend who asked him about the pair he saw going onto the roof of the saloon. Dusty called the cops and got there before the police so up he went to find a couple stark naked and not engaged in Robbery. Dusty said to them "What do you think you are doing?", then he told the listeners "well didn't I feel stupid I knew what they were doing". The couple finished and dressed Dusty didn't press charges and the couple told him that they lived in Tucson and any time he wanted to bring his wife and have sex on his rooftop he would be welcome. Best Helldorado story of the year for sure. another year our son provided a bit of fun for us, He was an actor in many of the skits and in one of the skits he was a poker player who had lost everything down to his boots and long red underwear, someone accused him of cheating and he jumped up and ran from the bar. A reporter from the Sierra vista paper caught the picture of him in flight, and it hit the front page. I sent a copy of the paper to family members and said I had always hoped that when he made the front page of the paper he would be fully clothed.

 

[B00Mer]

Well I'll tell ya, I enjoyed the time I spent there and will return for a longer time...

They are putting in a new Interstate that will allow a 12 minute drive into Tombstone, AT, which should help the town tourism grow.