Odie B. Faulk

Originally published in 1972.
Yes, this is a “history” book, and I’m shocked at how much I loved it! Our local library didn’t have much to choose from for the state of Arizona, and I dreaded getting started on this one, but it wasn’t bad at all. To help me through, I took lots of notes on things I found interesting and want to remember about Tombstone, and Googled certain places to see if they were part of a tourist attraction today and maybe find out more about it.

Chapter 6 gives you all the true details about the O.K. Corral shootout, which differs from what Hollywood has portrayed and want you to believe. You might be surprised. This is a place I’d love to check off my bucket list one day. If you are planning on a visit, then this is definitely a book you NEED to read. Very easy reading! The last chapter tells you what’s real and what is just a myth. This goes for all the little touristy things they try to sell you and make you believe are the truth at Tombstone.

The rush to Tombstone began in 1879, and ran good for seven years, to 1887.
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PLACES TO VISIT AND SEE TODAY IN TOMBSTONE:

• Tombstone Couthouse (1882) State Historic Park (223 E. Toughnut St.) Used from 1882 to 1929 when county seat was moved to Bisbee.

• The Golden Eagle Brewery (1877), now called The Crystal Palace Saloon (420 E. Allen St.). The building was built and was part of the Wherfritz Building when the town had only 300 residents. Virgil Earp, the popular Wyatt Earp's brother, was the marshal there for a bit, off and on, and had an office upstairs overlooking Allen Street, the main vein through the city. When German boch beer became so popular, the name of the building was changed to Fredericksburg Lager Beer Depot. They also then became well-known for their lunches. When the owners decided to add imported crystal stemware and large mirrors around the place, they changed to the current name, the Crystal Palace Saloon. (p. 91)

• The Rose Tree Museum

• Good Enough Mine Tour (p. 71: Most well-known 1881 million dollar lawsuit of ownership, which dragged on for 6 years, between Tough Nut Mine (Ed Schieffelin, owner) and Goodenough Mine ( ?split in 1/3rds between Ed and his brother, Al Schieffelin, and Richard Gird, the man who assayed all of their finds)...Tough Nut won. So, I'm not sure who exactly the fight was between.

• The Cosmopolitan Hotel (1879-1882) NO LONGER THERE! Burned in the 1882 fire.

• The Tombstone Grand Hotel not the original, but perhaps best place to stay and close to all wild west attractions - (580 W. Randolph Way) The original hotel where Doc Holiday and the Earp boys often stayed, burned in the 1882 fire. Big Nose Kate's Saloon was built in its place in walking distance of many tourist attractions...staged shootouts, Boothill Cemetery (8 min walk), O.K. Corral (12 min walk), Big Nose Kate's Saloon (21 min walk)

• Big Nose Kate's Saloon (417 E. Allen St.) [She was Doc Holliday’s girl] built, using the bones of what was left and in the place of the Grand Hotel after the 2nd fire at Tombstone on May 26, 1882 burned it down, which started in a water closet of the Tavoli Saloon. [The first fire was just one year earlier on June 22, 1881 cause by a bar owner checking a whiskey barrel to see how much was left with a cigar in his mouth. It exploded on him. Miraculously, there was not one single death, but mant buildings burned down. They built the town back up exactly as before and within two weeks you couldn't hardly tell there had ever been a fire. Hence, the second fire a year later. After that fire everything was rebuilt out of stucko and brick, and water lines were run to bring in a water supply by laying down 21 miles of wrought-iron pipe all the way from the Huachuca Mountains to Tombstone.] The bar was in the basement, but now on the main level with the original long bar, and a gift shop is now in the basement. The other original long bar that survived the 1882 fire is in the Bird Cage Theatre, which is now a museum. Here, some of the most famous residents stayed: Wyatt and Virgil Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clanton Gang when they came into town. In fact, Ike Clanton and the two McLowry brothers were registered guests the night before the famous OK Corral gunfight.

• Tombstone "Epitaph" [newspaper] Museum (Since 1880) Arizona's longest published newspaper...started with John Clum, original editor.

• St. Paul's Episcopal Church (first service on June 18, 1882) - oldest Episcopal church in Arizona.

• Boot Hill Cemetery - the first cemetery at Tombstone. It was filling up, full of rotten people...gamblers, drunks, whores, cut-throats, etc...The "good" people decided they could not be buried their along-side them, so they started another cemetery. Members of the churches, there were 4 at the height of the Tombstone days, joined with the various fraternities around at the time and purchased new land for the uppity-ups. Some "cultured" and "fine" families had already bought and paid for their burial plots in Boot Hill, so they were stuck with the riff-raffs. According to the Faulk (p. 209), in 1929 when the first Helldorado Week festivities was planned, members of the restoration committee noticed the cemetery in ruins...headboards were gone and the graves were unmarked. The records of graves weren't complete and it was impossible to replace headstones properly. They made up names and epitaphs and put up new headstones, then began charging people for a tour. You won't find any of the Earps or their family buried here. They fled for their lives for murder to other parts of the country. Doc Holliday died of tuberculosis in a Colorado sanitarium in 1887 at about age 35. Wyatt Earp fled Arizona to San Francisco where he met the daughter of a wealthy merchant, Josephine Sarah Marcus. They lived together. Wyatt was in Denver in 1883, then traveled to Kansas, Wyoming, Idaho and Texas. In 1886, they settled in San Diego for four years, then moved to San Francisco in 1890 where he tried to publicize himself and raced horses. He was next in Nome for four years operating a saloon in Alaska during the gold rush, then in Nebraska in 1905. Lastly, in 1906, he lived his last days in Los Angeles. Here, he was mainly seeking publicity. Wyatt approached William S. Hart, a movie cowboy, but that didn't take off. He then spoke with writer, Walter Noble Burns, but before anything could come of it, Wyatt died on January 3, 1929, at age 80. He had posed for one last photograph just before his death. You can find that one online, just Google it. His funeral was held in Colma, a small town near San Francisco. Honorary pallbearers were long-time friends and original editor of the Epitaph (newspaper in Tombstone), John Clum and George Parsons. He is buried at Hills of Eternity Memorial Park in Colma, California. Thieves actually stole his 300-pound grave marker. [Not sure if it was replaced.] It was two years after his death when he would receive the notoriety he had been seeking, even if over inflated.

• Schiefflin Hall (1881) for 20 years was the largest and best-known theater between El Paso and San Francisco....designed by Ed Schieffelin himself. At the time, the largest adobe building in the whole U.S....2 stories high, 130 feet long, seated 700 people, and a ceiling 24 feet high. It provided housing for a few select organizations and booked plays, operas, musicals and lectures. But, it was the Bird Cage that all the miners preferred.

• The Bird Cage Theatre (Dec 23, 1881), now a museum and has one of the original long bars. It was a little more wild and uncultured. Performers were the barmaids and roust-abouts around town looking to make a little extra money and putting on a variety show, leg shows, bawdy blackouts, and prostitutes hustling guys for free drinks. When everyone got tired of the show, chairs were stacked out of the way and made room for dancing and more drinking until dawn. You get the picture. Favorites of the Bird Cage were Pearl Ardine (jig-dancing), Mrs. De Granville (woman with an "iron jaw" packed the house during her stay), and Nola Forrest (a comedian). Most memorable act might be the Uncle Tom's Cabin play in 1882....as Eliza crosses an icy river, a drunk cowboy literally shot the hound dog who was following her and killed it. The audience, pissed, attacked the man and nearly beat him to death. He woke up the next morning in the slammer and felt so sorry for what he had Done that he cried over the dog and offered money and his horse to make up for it.

• The Oriental Saloon (opened July 22, 1880) - the finest saloon in town next to the Crystal Palace Saloon. The Earps dealt Faro (a card game...can YouTube on how to play Faro) here on the corner of 5th & Allen Street. Wyatt Earp was hired to keep order inside the saloon, and later his brother, Morgan was hired and dealing faro, and later murdered inside while playing pool by an ambush shot. It is now a clothing store, a steakhouse and drug store. A soda fountain is now served in place of the free-flowing beer at the bar. (Early photo of inside bar on page 122)

• The Can Can Restaurant (1879) served food only from cans

• The O.K. Corral - where the three outlaw cowboys: Tom and Frank McLowry, and William "Billy" Clanton, were killed (mudered) by then Marshal Virgil Earp, who had that very morning deputized his two brothers: Wyatt and Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday. They were either protecting Doc Holliday or were also in on the recent strain of stagecoach robberies and, since the outlaws knew the truth, the Earp boys needed them to go down. There was several rumors going around about all that. It became very confusing because they had Officials in office who were on the Earps side and the case didn't run so smoothly. Lots of questions to this day temain unanswered.

• Ed Schieffelin (1847-1897) gravesite at Tombstone Courthouse Historic Park - Ed was an antsie prospector all his life. He was found dead at the door of his cabin in Oregon at age 49. His will provided last wishes...NOT to be buried in any cemetery. He wanted to be buried "on top of the granite hills about three miles westerly from the City of Tombstone, Arizona, and that a monument such as prospectors build when locating a mining claim be built over my grave, and no other slab or monument."… (mere)

Oklahoma Trackmaker Series
Dear Everybody
Publisher: Oklahoma Heritage Association, OKC, 1982, Oklahoma City
Publication Date: 1982
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
ISBN: 0865460396
Edition:
Book by Faulk, Odie B.
Topic:
Bass, Henry Benjamin, 1899-1975.
Enid (Okla.) -- History.
https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/DEAR-Life-Henry-B-Heinie-Bass/19649652534...… (mere)